LIBRARY OF,X;ONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Talks on Manures. 



A SERIES OF FAMILIAR AND PRACTICAL TALKS BETWEEN THE AUTHOR 

AND THE DEACON. THE DOCTOR, AND OTHER NEIGHBORS, ON 

THE WHOLE SUBJECT OF MANURES AND FERTILIZERS. 



^ 



BY 



JOSEPH HAERIS, M. S. 

AITTHOB OF *' WALKS AND TALK8 ON THE FABM," ' * HABRIS ON THE PIG," Kia 



NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION, 

INCLUDING A CHAPTER SPECIALLY WRITTEN FOR IT BY SIR JOHN 
BENNET LAWBS, OF ROTHAMSTED, ENGLAND. 



a 
\ 





NEW YORK: 

ORAl^GE JUDD COMPANY, 

751 BROADWAY. 

1883. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by the 

ORANGE JUDD COMPANiT, 

In the OflSce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER L 
Faraing as a Business.— High Fanning and Good Fanning.— Summer-fallow- 
ing and PIcAving under Clover.— We must raise larger Crops per Acre.— 
Pestruction of Weeds,— Farming is Slow Work.— It requires Personal At- 
tention.! 9 

CHAPTER n. 

What is Manure ?— The definitions given by the Deacon and the Doctor 19 

CHAPTER in. 
Something about Plant-food.— All soils on which plants grow contain It.— 
The Season.— Water, Shade, Light, and Mulch, not Manures.— Several Def- 
initions of Manure 21 

CHAPTER IV. 
Natural Manure. —Accumulated Plant-food in the Soil.— Exhaustion of the 
Soil. — Why our Crops are so Poor.— How to get Larger Crops. — We must 
Drain, Cultivate thoroughly, and Make Richer Manure 23 

CHAPTER V. 
Swamp-muck and Peat as Manure.— Draining Swamp-land.— Composition of 
Peat and Muck 29 

CHAPTER VI. 

What is Potential Ammonia 31 

CHAPTER Vn. 

Tillage is Manure.— The Doctor's Lecture on Manure 33 

CHAPTER Vin. 
Summer-fallowing.— Mr. Lawes' crop every other year.— WTieat after Bar- 
ley.—For Larger Crops raise less frequently, and Manure Higher ; also 
keep better Stock, an^ Feed Higher 34 

CHAPTER IX. 
How to Restore a Worn-out Farm — The Author's Farm.— Tillage renders the 
Plant-food stored in the soil available.— Cultivated Lands contain less 
Plant-food, but are more productive.- Grass alone will not make rich land. 37 

CHAPTER X. 

How to Make Manure.— We must get it out of the Land 41 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Value of the Manure depends upon the Food— not upon the Animal 43 

CHAPTER Xn. 
Foods which Make Rich Manure.— Table giving the composition of 31 kinds 
of Food, and the value of the Manure they yield.— Cotton-seed Cake.— 
English and German Clover.- Nitrogenous matter in Rich and Poor Foods. — 

Manure from Com compared with that from Straw 46 

III 



IV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Horse-manure and Farm-yard Manure.— Why the one is richer than the oth- 
er.— Amount of Manure from a Horse.— Composition of Farm-yard Ma- 
nure.— We draw and spread a ton to get 33 lbs. of Nitrogen, Phosphoric 

Acid, and Potash 50 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Fermenting Manure.— Composition of Manure when Fresh and in its stages 
of Fermentation.— Loss in Fermentation and from Leaching.— Tables show- 
ing the composition of Manure at diflfereut stages.— Fermenting makes 
Manure more Soluble '. 52 

CHAPTER XV. 
Keeping Manure under Cover.— Dr. Voelcker's Experiments.— Manure Fer- 
mented Outside and Under Cover.— Loss from keeping Manure spread in 
the Barn-yard.— Keeping well-rotted Manure in a Heap.— Conclusions from 
Dr. Voelcker's Experiments 59 

CHAPTER XVI. 
An English Plan of Keeping Manure.— Box-feeding of Cattle.— Spreading 
Manure at once.— Piling in Heaps in the Field.— Old Sods and Ashes from 
CharredSods 69 

CHAPTER XVn. 
Soluble Phosphates in Farm-yard Manure.— Fermented, the Manure has the 
most.— Over 40 per cent, of the Phosphoric Acid is Soluble 72 

CHAPTER XVni. 
How the Deacon makes Manure.— A good plan for making poor Manure 74 

CHAPTER XIX. 
How John Johnston Manages His Manure. -Summer-fallows for Wheat.— 
Does not plow under Clover.— Value of Manure from different foods.— 
Piling Manure.— Applies Manure to Grass-land in Fall, and Plows under in 
Spring for Corn.— His success due to the Effect of Manure on Grass.— It 
brought in Red Clover 76 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Author's Plan of Managing Manure.— Piles as fast as it is Made.— What 
it is Made of.— Horse and Cow Manure Together.— Horse Manure for Bed- 
ding Pigs.— To Prevent Freezing.— Liquid Manure from Pigs.- Bedding 
Sheep.-Piling in the Field.— Where the Piles should be Made?— Manure in 
a Basin.— Reasons for Piling.— What we Gain by Fermenting Manure 83 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Management Continued.— Why We Ferment Manure.— Dr. Voelcker's Experi- 
ments showing the Loss when Manure is spread in Yard?.— Fermenting 
adds Nothing to Manure, but makes it more available.— Mr. Lawes' Experi- 
ments on Wheat and Barley.— Dr. Voelcker's Resultfj.-Ellwanger & Barry's 
Experience.— Loss of Ammonia by Fermenting.— Waste from Leaching.— 
How to Save the Liquid Manure from Cows 94 

CHAPTER XXn. 

Manure on Dairy Farms.— Wheat removes much more Nitrogen than Cheese.— 
Manures for Dairy Farms.— Letter from Hon. Harris Lewis.— How to make 
more and better Manure on Dairy Farms.— How to save and apply it.— Let- 
ter from T. L, Harison, Esq 101 



CONTENTS. V 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Management of Manures on Grain Farms.— Letter from Hon. Geo. Geddes. — 
Gniiu on Dairy Farms. — Sheep on Grain Farms. — Visit to Joliu Johnston. — 
Mr. Lawes' Wheat-field. — Mr. Geddes and Clover. — Gypsum and Clover as 
Manures Ill 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Cheapest Manure a Farmer can use.— Clover vs. Tillage. — As Plant- 
Food.— Constituents of a Crop of Clover, as compared with one of Wheat. — 
Making a Farm Rich by Growing Clover 127 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Dr. Voelcker's Experiments on Clover.— Lawes and Gilbert's on Wheat. — 
Clover Roots per Acre.— Manures for Wheat.— Liebig's Manure Theory. — 
Peruvian Guano on Wheat.— Manures and the Quality of Wheat.— Ammonia. 
—Over 50 Bushels of Wheat to the Acre 135 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Experiments on Clover Soils from Burcott Lodge Farm, Leighton Buzzard. — 
Soil from Part of 11-acre Field twice Mown for Hay.— Soil from do. once 
Mown for Hay and left for Seed.— Amount of Roots left in the Soil by differ- 
ent Crops.— Manures for Wheat 149 

CHAPTER XXVn. 
Lawes and Gilbert's Experiments on Wheat. — Most Valuable and Instructive 
Tables now first made accessible to the American Farmer.— The growth of 
Wheat Year after Year on the same Land, unmanured, with Farm-yard Ma- 
nure, and with various Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers 170 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Lime as a Manure. —Prof. Way's Experiments.— The uses of Lime in the 
Soil.— Lime in this Country.— Composts with Lime 215 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
Manures for Barley.— Composition of Barley, grain and straw.— Valuable Ta- 
bles giving the Results of Lawes and Gilbert's Experiments on the growth 
of Barley, Year after Year, on the same Land, without Manure, and with 
different kinds of Manure. — Manure and Rotation of Crops 227 



CHAPTER 

Manures for Oats.— Experiments at Rothamsted.— Erperiments of Mr. Bath 
of Virginia.— At Moreton Pai-m 252 

CHAPTER XXXI. 
Manures for Potntoes.— Peruvian Giiano for Potatoes.— Manure from different 
Foods.— Eperi men ts at Moreton Farm.— Mr. Hunter's Experiments 255 

CHAPTER XXXII. 
What Crops ehonld Manure be Applied to?— How, and When ?— John J, 
Thomas' manner of Applying Manure.— Top Dressing. — Doct. Voelcker's 
Experiments — 265 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 
Manures on Permanent Meadows and Pastures. — Experiments at Rothamstcd.2'71 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 
Manures for Special Crops.— Hops.— Indian Corn.— Turnips.— Mangel-Wurzel 
or Sugar-Beets.— Cabbages, Parsnips, Lettuce, Onions, etc 274 

CHAPTER XXXV. 
Manures for Gardens and Orchards.— Market Gardens.— Seed-growini,- Farms. 
—Private Gardens.— Hot-beds.— Manure for Nurserymen.— Fruit Growers.' 



-Hen-Manure 



.294 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 
Different Kinds of Manures.— Cow Manure.- Sheep Manure.— Buying Manure. 
—Liquid Manure.— Niglitsoil and Sewage.— Peruvian Guano.— Salts of Am^ 
mouia and Nitrate of Soda oqq 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 
Bone-Dust and Superphosphate of Lime.— Bone furnishes Nitrogen as well as 
Phosphate of Lime.— Increasing the Availability of Bone with Sulphuric 
■^cid 314 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
Special Manures.— Liebig's Vievps.— Special Manure for Wheat and Turnips. 
— Rothamsted Experiments 320 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 
Value of Fertilizers.- Cost per pound of the Essential Constituents of Ferti- 
lizers.— Value of Guanos.— Potash as a Manure. 324 

CHAPTER XL. 
ReBtoring Fertility to the Soil, a Chapter by Sir John Bennet Lawes.— The 
Treatment of a Poor Farm, to Restore it most Profitably.— Meat-making 
the Back-bone of the System.— The Use of Sheep to Manure the Soil.— 
The Feeding of Cotton-seed Cake.— Artificial Manures not Profitable on 
Poor Land.— The Loss of Nitrogen.— The Formation of Nitric Acid 342 

APPENDIX. 
Letter from Edward Jessop. — From Dr. E. L. Sturtcvant.— From M. C. Weld. 
— From Peter Henderson.— From J. B. M. Anderson.— Manure Statistics of 
Long Island.— Letter from J. H. Rushmore.— Letter from John E. Backus. 
—Manure in Philadelphia.— Various other Letters. 333 



INTEODUCTION TO NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION. 



Sir John Bennet Lawes kindly consented to write a Chapter 
for the new edition of this work. The Deacon, the Doctor, the 
Squire, CharUe and myself all felt flattered and somewhat 
bashful at tinding ourselves in such distinguished company. I 
need not say that this new Chapter from the pen of the most 
eminent English agricultural investigator is worthy of a very 
careful study. I have read it again and again, and each 
time with great and renewed interest. I could wish there was 
more of it. But to the intelligent and well-informed reader 
this Chapter will be valued not merely for what it contains, but 
for what it omits. A man who knew less would write more. 
Sir John goes straight to the mark, and we have here his 
mature views on one of the most important questions in 
agricultural science and practice. 

Sir John describes a tract of poor land, and tells us that the 
cheapest method of improving and enriching it is, to keep a 
large breeding flock of sheep, and feed them American cotton- 
seed cake. We are pleased to find that this is in accordance 
vsdth the general teaching of our " Talks," as given in this book 
several years ago. 

When this work was first published, some of my friends 
expressed sui-prise that I did not recommend the more extended 
use of artificial manures. One thing is certain, since that time 
the use of superphosphate has been greatly on the increase. 
And it seems clear that its use must be profitable. Where I 
live, in Western New York, it is sown quite generally on winter 
wheat, and also on barley and oats in the spring. On corn and 
potatoes, its use is not so common. Whether this is because 
its application to these crops is not so easy, or because it does 
not produce so marked an increase in the yield per acre, I am 
unable to say. 

Our winter wheat is sown here the first, second, or (rarely) 
the third week in September. We sow from one and a half to 
two and a quarter bushels per acre. It is almost invariably 
sown with a drill. The drill has a fertilizer attachment that 
distributes the superphosphate at the same time the wheat is 
(Vll) 



VIII TALKS ON MANURES. 

sown. The superphosphate is not mixed with the wheat, but 
it drops into the same tubes with the wheat, and is sown with 
it in the same drill mark. In this wa}*, the superphosphate is 
deposited where the roots of the young plants can immediately 
find it. For barley and oats the same method is adopted. 

It will be seen that the cost of sowing superphosphate on 
these crops is merely nominal. But for corn and potatoes, 
when planted in hills, the superphosphate must be dropped in 
the hill by hand, and, as we are almost always hurried at that 
season of the year, we are impatient at anything which will 
delay planting even for a day. The boys want to go fishing ! 

This is, undoubtedly, one reason why superphosphate is not 
used so generally with us for corn as for wheat, barley, and 
oats. Another reason may be, that one hundred pounds of corn 
will not sell for anything like as much as one hundred pounds 
of wheat, barley, and oats. 

We are now buying a very good superphosphate, made from 
Carolina rock phosphate, for about one and a half cents per 
pound. We usually drill in about two hundred pounds per acre 
at a cost of three dollars. Now, if this gives us an increase of five 
bushels of wheat per acre, worth six dollars, we think it pays. 
It often does far better than this. Last year the wheat crop 
of Western New York was the best in a third of a century, 
which is as far back as I have had anything to do with farming 
here. Fi om all I can learn, it is doubtful if the wheat crop of 
Western New York has ever averaged a larger yield per acre 
since the land was first cultivated after the removal of the 
original forest. Something of this is due to better methods of 
cultivation and tillage, and something, doubtless, to the 
general use of superphosphate, but much more to the favor- 
able season. 

The present year our wheat crop turned out exceedingly poor. 
Hundreds of acres of wheat were plowed up, and the land re- 
sown, and hundreds more would have been plowed up had it 
not been for the fact that the land was seeded with timothy 
grasc at the time of sowing the wheat, and with clover in the 
spring. We do not like to lose our grass and clover. 

Dry weather in the autumn was the real cause of the poor 
yield of wheat this year. True, we had a very trying winter, 
and a still more trying spring, followed by dry, cold weather. 
The season was very backward. We wei3 not able to sow any- 
thing in the fields before the first of May, and our wheat 
ought to have been ready to harvest in July. On the first 



IKTRODUCTIOI^ TO N^EW EDITION^. IX 

of May, many of our wheat-fields, especially on clay land, 
looked as bare as a naked fallow. 

There was here and there, a good field of wheat. As a rule, it 
was on naturally moist land, or after a good summer-fallow, sown 
early. I know of but one exception. A neighboring nursery 
firm had a very promising field of wheat, which was sown late. 
But their land is rich and unusually well worked. It is, in fact, 
in the very highest condition, and, though sown late, the young 
plants were enabled to make a good strong growth in the 
autumn. 

In such a dry season, the great point is, to get the seed to 
germinate, and to furnish sufficient moisture and food to enable 
the young plants to make a strong, vigorous growth of roots in 
the autumn. I do not say that two hundred pounds of super- 
phosphate per acre, drilled in with the seed, will always accom- 
plish this object. But it is undoubtedly a great help. It does 
not furnish the nitrogen which the wheat requires, but if it will 
stimulate the production of roots in the early autumn, the 
plants will be much more likely to find a sufficient supply of 
nitrogen in the soil than plants with fewer and smaller roots. 

In a season like the past, therefore, an application of two 
hundred pounds of superphosphate per acre, costing three dol- 
lars, instead of giving an increase of five or six bushels per 
acre, may give us an increase of fifteen or twenty bushels per 
acre. That is to say, owing to the dry weather in the autumn, 
followed by severe weather in the winter, the weak plants on 
the unmanured land may either be killed out altogether, or 
injured to such an extent that the crop is hardly worth har- 
vesting, while the wheat where the phosphate was sown may 
give us almost an average crop. 

Sir John B. Lawes has somewhere compared the owner of 
land to the owner of a coal mine. The owner of the coal digs 
it and gets it to market in the best way he can. The farmer's 
coal mine consists of plant food, and the object of the farmer 
is to get this food into such plants, or such parts of plants, as 
his customers require. It is hardly worth while for the owner 
of the coal mine to trouble his head about the exhaustion of 
the supply of coal. His true plan is to dig it as economi- 
cally as he can, and get it into market. Tliere is a good deal 
of coal in the world, and there is a good deal of plant food in 
the earth. As long as the plant food lies dormant in the soil, 
it is of no value to man. The object of the farmer is to con- 
vert it into products which man and animals require. 



X TALKS ON MANUEES. 

Mining for coal is a very simple matter, but how best to get 
the greatest quantity of plant food out of the soil, with the least 
waste and the greatest profit, is a much more complex and 
difficult task. Plant food consists of a dozen or more different 
substances. "We have talked about them in the pages of this 
book, and all I wish to say here is that some of them are much 
more abundant, and more readily obtained, than others. The 
three substances most difficult to get at are: nitric acid, phos- 
phoric acid and potash. All these substances are in the soil, 
but some soils contain much more than others, and their rela- 
tive proportion varies considerably. The substance which is of 
the greatest importance, is nitric acid. As a rule, the fertihty 
of a soil is in proportion to the amount of nitric acid which 
becomes available for the use of plants during the growing 
season. Many of our soils contain large quantities of nitrogen, 
united with carbon, but the plants do not take it up in this 
form. It has to be converted into nitric acid. Nitric acid con- 
sists of seven pounds of nitrogen and twenty pounds of 
oxygen. It is produced by the combustion of nitrogen. Since 
these "Talks" were published, several important facts have been 
discovered in regard to how plants take up nitrogen, and es- 
pecially in regard to how organic nitrogen is converted into 
nitric acid. It is brought about through the action of a minute 
fungoid plant. There are several things necessary for the 
growth of this plant. We must have some nitrogenous sub- 
stance, a moderate degree of heat, say from seventy to one 
hundred and twenty degrees, a moderate amount of moisture, 
and plenty of oxygen. Shade is also favorable. If too hot or 
too cold, or too wet or too dry, the growth of the plant is 
checked, and the formation of nitric acid suspended. The 
presence of lime, or of some alkali, is also necessary for the 
growth of this fungus and the production of nitric acid. The 
nitric acid unites with the lime, and forms nitrate of lime, or 
with soda to form nitrate of soda, o^!" with potash to form 
nitrate of potash, or salt-petre. A water-logged soil, by exclud- 
ing the oxysen, destroys this plant, hence one of the advan- 
tages of underdraining. I have said that shade is favorable to 
the growth of this fungus, and this fact explains and confirms 
the common idea that shade is manure. 

The great object of agriculture is to convert the nitrogen of 
our soils, or of green crops plowed under, or of manure, into 
nitric acid, and then to convert this nitric acid into profitable 
products with as little loss as possible. Nitrogen, or rather 



INTRODUCTION TO NEW EDITION. XI 

nitric acid, is the most costly ingredient in plant food, and un- 
fortunately it is very easily washed out of the soil and lost. 
Perhaps it is absolutely impossible to entirely prevent all loss 
from leaching; but it is certainly well worth our while to under- 
stand the subject, and to know exactly what we are doing. In 
a new country, where land is cheap, it may be more profitable 
to raise as large crops as possible without any regard to the 
loss of nitric acid. But this condition of things does not last 
long, and it very soon becomes desirable to adopt less wasteful 
processes. 

In Lawes and Gilbert's experiments, there is a great loss of 
nitric acid from drainage. In no case has as much nitrogen 
been obtained in the increased crop as was applied in the ma- 
nure. There is always a loss and probably always will be. But 
we should do all we can to ma!i;e the ^oss as small as possible, 
consistent with the production of profitable crops. 

There are many ways of lessening this loss of nitrie acid. Our 
farmers sow superphosphate with their wheat in the autumn, 
and this stimulates, we think, the growth of roots, which 
ramify in all directions through the soil. This increased 
growth of root brings the plant in contact with a 
larger feeding surface, and enables it to take up more nitric 
acid from its solution in the soil. Such is also the case during 
the winter and early spring, when a good deal of water per- 
meates through the soil. The application of superphosphate, 
unquestionably in many cases, prevents much loss of nitric acid. 
It does this by giving us a much greater growth of wheat. 

I was at Rothamsted in 1879, and witnessed the injurious 
effect of an excessive rainfall, in washing out of the soil 
nitrate of soda and salts of ammonia, which were sown with 
the wheat in the autumn. It was an exceedingly wet season, 
and the loss of nitrates on all the different plots was very great. 
But where the nitrates or salts of ammonia were sown in the 
spring, while the crops were growing, the loss was not nearly 
so great as when sown in the autumn. 

The sight of that wheat field impressed me, as nothing else 
could, with the importance of guarding against the loss of 
available nitrogen from leaching, and it has changed my prac- 
tice in two or three important respects. I realize, as never be- 
fore, the importance of applying manure to crops, rather than 
to the land. I mean by this, that the object of applying ma- 
nure is, not simply to make land rich, but to make crops grow. 
Manure is a costly and valuable article, and we want to convert 



XII TALKS OK MAKUEES. 

it into plants, with as little delay as possible, which will, di- 
rectly or indirectly, bring in some money. 

Our chmate is very different fropi that of England. As a 
rule, we seldom have enough rain, from the time corn is planted 
until it is harvested, to more than saturate the ground on our 
upland soils. This year is an exception. On Sunday night, 
May 20, 1883, we had a northeast storm which continued three 
days. During these three days, from three to five inches of 
rain fell, and for tiie first time in many years, at this season, my 
underdrains discharged water to their full capacity. Had 
nitrate of soda been sown on bare land previous to this rain, 
much of it would, doubtless, have been lost by leaching. This, 
however, is an exceptional case. My underdrains usually do 
not commence to discJiarge water before the first of December, 
or continue later than the first of May. To guard against loss 
of nitrogen by leaching, therefore, we should aim to keep rich 
land occupied by some crop, during the winter and early 
spring, and the earlier the crop is sown in the. autumn or late 
summer, the better, so that the roots will the more completely 
fill the ground and take up all the available nitrogen within 
their reach. I have said that this idea had modified my own 
practice. I grow a considerable quantity of garden vegetables, 
principally for seed. It is necessary to make the land very 
rich. The plan I have adopted to guard against the loss of 
nitrogen is this : As soon as the land is cleared of any crop, 
after it is too late to sow turnips, I sow it with rye at the rate 
of one and a half to two bushels per acre. On this rich land, 
especially on the moist low land, the rye makes a great 
growth during our warm autumn weather. The rye checks 
the growth of weeds, and furnishes a considerable amount of 
succulent food for sheep, during the autumn or in the spring. 
If not needed for food, it can be turned under in the spring for 
manure. It unquestionably prevents the loss of considerable 
nitric acid from leaching during the winter and early spring. 

Buckwheat, or millet, is sometimes sown on such land for 
plowing under as manure, but as these crops are killed out by 
the winter, tliey cannot prevent the loss of nitric acid during 
the winter and spring months. It is only on unusually rich 
land that such precautions are particularly necessary. It has 
been thought that these experiments of Lawes and Gilbert 
afford a strong argument against the use of summer-fallows. 
I do not think so. A summer-fallow, in this country, is usu- 
ally a piece of land which has been seeded down one, two, and 



INTRODUCTIOK TO NEW EDITION. XIII 

sometimes three years, with red clover. The land is plowed in 
May or June, and occasionally in July, and is afterwards sown 
to winter wheat in September. The treatment of the summer- 
fallow varies in different localities and on different farms. 

Sometimes the land is only plowed once. The clover, or sod, 
is plowed under deep and well, and the after-treatment con- 
sists in keeping the surface soil free from weeds, by the fre- 
quent use of the harrow, roller, cultivator or gang-plow. In 
other cases, especially on heavy clay land, the first plowing is 
done early in the spring, and when the sod is sufficiently 
rotted, the land is cross-plowed, and afterwards made fine and 
mellow by the use of the roller, harrow, and cultivator. Just 
before sowing the wheat, many good, old-fashioned farmers, 
plow the land again. But in this section, a summer-faUow, 
plowed two or three times during the summer, is becoming 
more and more rare every year. 

Those farmers who summer-fallow at all, as a rule, plow their 
land but once, and content themselves with mere surface culti- 
vation afterwards. It is undoubtedly true, also, that summer 
fallows of all kinds are by no means as common as formerly. 
This fact may be considered an argument against the use of 
summer-fallowing; but it is not conclusive in my mind. Patient 
waiting is not a characteristic of the age. We are inclined to 
take risks. We prefer to sow our land to oats, or barley, and 
run the chance of getting a good wheat crop after it, rather 
than to spend several months in cleaning and mellowing the 
land, simply to grow one crop of wheat. 

It has always seemed to me entirely unnecessary to iirge 
farmers not to summer-fallow. We all naturally prefer to see 
the laud occupied by a good paying crop, rather than to spend 
time, money, and labor, in preparing it to produce a crop twelve 
or fifteen months afterwards. Yet some of the agricultural edi- 
tors and many of the agricultural writers, seem to take delight 
in deriding the old-fashioned summer-fallow. The fact that 
Lawes and Gilbert in England find that, when land contains 
considerable nitric acid, the water which percolates through 
the soil to the underdrains beneath, contains more nitrate of 
lime when the land is not occupied by a crop, than when the 
roots of growing plants fill the soil, is deemed positive proof 
that summer-fallowing is a wasteful practice. 

If we summer-fallowed for a spring crop, as I have some- 
times done, it is quite probable that there would be a loss of 
nitrogen. But, as I have said before, it is very seldom that any 



XIV TALKS OJS^ MANURES. 

water passes through the soil from the time we commence the 
summer-fallow until the wheat is sown in the autumn, or for 
many weeks afterwards. The nitrogen, which is converted 
into nitric acid by the agency of a good summer-fallow, is no 
more liable to be washed out of the soil after the field is sown 
to wheat in the autumn, than if we applied the nitrogen in the 
form of some readily available manure. 

I still believe in summer fallows. If I had my life to live 
over again, I would certainly summer-fallow more than I have 
done. I have been an agricultural writer for one-third of a 
century, and have persistently advocated the more extended 
use of the summer-fallow. I have nothing to take back, unless 
it is what I have said in reference to " fall-fallowing." Possibly 
this practice may result in loss, though I do not think so. 

A good summer-fallow, on rather heavy clay land, if the con- 
ditions are otherwise favorable, is pretty sure to give us a good 
crop of wheat, and a good crop of clover and grass afterwards. 
Of course, a farmer who has nice, clean sandy soil, will not 
think of summer-fallowing it. Such soils are easily worked, 
and it is not a diffi3ult matter to keep them clean without 
summer-fallowing. Such soils, however, seldom contain a 
large store of unavailable plant food, and instead of summer- 
fallowing, we had better manure. On such soils artificial ma- 
nures are often very profitable, though barn-yard manure, or 
the droppings of animals feeding on the land, should be the 
prime basis of all attempts to maintain, or increase, the pro- 
ductiveness of such soils. 

Since this book was first published, I do not know of any new 
facts in regard to the important question of, how best to 
manage and apply our barn-yard manure, so as to make it more 
immediately active and available. It is unquestionably true, 
that the same amount of nitrogen in barn-yard manure, will 
not produce so great an effect as its theoretical value would in- 
dicate. There can be no doubt, however, that the better we 
feed our animals, and the more carefully we save the liquids, 
the more valuable and active will be the manure. 

The conversion of the inert nitrogen of manures and soils, 
into nitric acid, as already stated, is now known to be produced 
by a minute fungus. I hope it will be found that we can intro- 
duce this hacterium into our manure piles, in such a way as to 
greatly aid the conversion of inert nitrogen into nitrates. 

Experiments have been made, and are still continued, at 
Woburn, under the auspices of the Royal Agricultural Society 



INTRODUCTIOK TO NEW EDITION. XV 

of England, to ascertain, among other things, whether manure 
from sheep receiving an allowance of cotton-seed cake is any 
richer than that from sheep, otherwise fed alike, but having, 
instead of cotton-seed cake, the same amount of corn meal. We 
know that such manure contains more nitrogen, and other 
plant food, than that from the com meal. But the experiments 
so far, though they have been continued for several years, do 
not show any striking superiority of the manure from cotton- 
seed cake over that from com meal. I saw the wheat on these 
differently manured plots in 1879. Dr. Vcelcker and Dr. Gil- 
bert, told me that, one of two plots was dressed with the cot- 
ton-seed manure, and the other with the corn meal manure, 
and they wanted me to say which was the most promising 
crop. I believe the one I said was the better, was the cotton- 
seed plot. But the difference was very slight. The truth is 
that such experiments must be continued for many years before 
they will prove anything. As I said before, we know that the 
manure from the cotton-seed cake is richer in nitrogen than 
that from the corn meal ; but we also know that this nitrogen 
will not produce so great an effect, as a much smaller amount 
of nitrogen in salts of ammonia, or nitrate of soda. 

In going over these experiments, I was struck with the 
healthy and vigorous appearance of one of the plots of wheat, 
and asked how it was manured. Dr. Voelcker called out, 
" clover, Mr. Harris, clover." In England, as in America, it 
requires very little observation and experience to convince any 
one of the value of clover. After what I have said, and what 
the Deacon, the Doctor, Charley and the Squire have said, in 
the pages of this book, I hope no one will think that I do not 
appreciate the great value of red clover as a means of enrich- 
ing our land. Dr. Voelcker evidently thought I was skeptical 
on this point. I am not. I have great faith in the benefits to 
be derived from the growth of clover. But I do not think it 
originates fertility ; it does not get nitrogen from the atmos- 
phere. Or at any rate, we have no evidence of it. The facts 
are all the other way. We have discussed this question at 
considerable length in the pages of this book, and it is 
not necessary to say more on the subject. I would, however, 
particularly urge farmers, especially those who are using phos- 
phates freely, to grow as much clover as possible, and feed it 
out on the farm, or plow it under for manure. 

The question is frequently asked, whether the use of phos- 
phates will ultimately impoverish our farms. It may, or it may 



XVI TALKS ON MAKUKES. 

not. It depends on our general management. Theoretically, 
the use of a manure furnishing only one element of plant food, 
if it increases the growth of crops which are sold from the 
farm, must have a tendency to impoverish the land of the other 
elements of plant food. In other words, the use of superphos- 
phate furnishing only, or principally, phosphoric acid, lime and 
sulphuric acid, must have a tendency to impoverish the soil of 
nitrogen and potash. Practically, however, it need do nothing 
of the kind. If the land is well cultivated, and if our low, 
rich, alluvial portions of the farm are drained, and if the hay, 
grass, clover, straw and fodder crops are retained, the more 
phosphates we use, the richer and more productive will, the 
farm become. And I think it is a fact, that the farmers who 
use the most phosphates, are the very men who take the great- 
est pains to drain their land, cultivate it thoroughly, and make 
the most manure. It follows, therefore, that the use of phos- 
phates is a national benefit. 

Some of our railroad managers take this view of the subject. 
They carry superphosphate at a low rate, knowing that its use 
will increase the freight the other way. In other words, they 
bring a ton of superphosphate from the seaboard, knowing that 
its use will give them many tons of freight of produce, from 
the interior to the seaboard. It is not an uncommon thing for 
two hundred pounds of superphosphate, to give an increase of 
five tons of turnips per acre. Or, so to speak, the railroa-d that 
brings one ton of superphosphate from the seaboard, might, as 
the result of its use, have fifty tons of freight to carry back 
again. This is perhaps an exceptionably favorable instance, 
but it illustrates the principle. Years ago, before the abolition 
of tolls on the English turnpike roads, carriages loaded with 
lime, and all otlier substances intended for manure, were 
allowed to go free. And our railroads will find it to their in- 
terest to transport manures of all kinds, at a merely nominal 
rate. 

Many people wiU be surprised at the recommendation of Sir 
John B. Lawes, not to waste time and money in cleaning poor 
land, before seeding it down to grass. He thinks that if the 
land is made rich, the superior grasses overgrow the bad 
grasses and weeds. I have no doubt he is right in this, though 
the principle may be pushed to an extreme. Our climate, in 
this country, is so favorable for killing weeds, that the plow 
and the cultivator will probably be a more economical means 
of making our land clean, than the liberal use of expensive 



IKTRODUCTIOIT TO NEW EDITION. XVII 

manures. It depends, doubtless, on the land and on circum- 
stances. It is well to know that manure on grass land, will so 
increase the growth of the good grasses, as to smother the 
weeds. Near my house was a piece of land that I wanted to 
make into a lawn. I sowed it with grass seed, but the weeds 
smothered it out. I plowed it, and hoed it, and re-seeded it, 
but still the weeds grew. Mallows came up by the thousand, 
with other weeds too numerous to mention. It was an eye- 
sore. We mowed the weeds, but almost despaired of ever 
making a decent bit of grass land out of it. It so happened 
that, one year, we placed the chicken coops on this miserable 
weedy spot. The hens and chickens were kept there for several 
weeks. The feed and the droppings made it look more un- 
sightly than ever, but the next spring, as if by magic, the 
weeds were gone and the land was covered with dark green 
luxuriant grass. 

In regard to the use of potash as a manure, we have still 
much to learn. It would seem that our grain crops will use 
soda, if they cannot get potash. They much prefer the potash, 
and wiU grow much more luxuriantly where, in the soil or ma- 
nure, in addition to the other .elements of plant food, potash is 
abundant. But the increased growth caused, by the potash, is 
principally, if not entirely, straw, or leaves and stem. Nature 
makes a great effort to propagate the species. A plant of wheat 
or barley, will produce seed if this is possible, even at the ex- 
pense of the other parts of the plant. 

For grain crops, grown for seed, therefore, it would seem to 
be entirely unprofitable to use potash as a manure. If the soil 
contains the other elements of plant food, the addition of 
potash may give us a much more luxuriant growth of leaves 
and stem, but no more grain or seed. For hay, or grass or fod- 
der crops, the case is very different, and potash may often be 
used on these crops to great advantage. 

I am inclined to think that considerable nitrate of soda will 
yet be used in this country for manure. I do not suppose it will 
pay as a rule, on wheat, com and other standard grain crops. 
But the gardener, seed grower, and nurseryman, will find out 
how to use it with great profit. Our nurserymen say that they 
cannot use artificial manures with any advantage. It is un- 
doubtedly true that a dressing of superphosphate, sown on a 
block of nurseiy trees, will do Httle good. It never reaches the 
roots of the plants. Superphosphate can not be washed down 
deep into the soil. Nitrate of soda is readily carried down, as 



XVITI TALKS ON MAKURES. 

deep as the water sinks. For trees, therefore, it would seem 
desirable to apply the superhosphate before they are planted, 
and plow it under. And the s^me is true of potash ; but 
nitrate of soda would be better applied as a top-dressing every 
year, early in the spring. 

The most discouraging fact, in Lawes' and Gilbert's experi- 
ments, is the great loss of nitrogen. It would seem that, on an 
average, during the last forty years, about one-half the ni- 
trogen is washed out of the soil, or otherwise lost. I can not 
but hope and believe that, at any rate in this country, there is 
no such loss in practical agriculture. In Lawes' and Gilbert's 
experiments on wheat, this grain is grown year after year, on 
the same land. Forty annual crops have been removed. No 
clover is sown with the wheat, and great pains are taken to 
keep the land clean. The crop is hoed while growing, and the 
weeds are pulled out by hand. The best wheat season during 
the forty years, was the year 1863. The poorest, that of 1879 ; 
and it so happened, that after an absence of thirty years, I was 
at Rothamsted during this poor year of 1879. The first thing 
that struck me, in looking at the experimental wheat, was the 
ragged appearance of the crop. My own wheat crop was being 
cut the day I left home, July 15. Several men and boys were 
pulling weeds out of the experimental wheat, two weeks later. 
Had the weeds been suffered to grow. Sir John Bennet Lawes 
tells us, there would be less loss of nitrogen. The loss of ni- 
trogen in 1863, was about twenty-four pounds per acre, and in 
1879 fifty pounds per acre — the amount of available nitrogen, 
applied in each year, being eighty-seven pounds per acre. As I 
said before, the wheat in 1879 had to me a ragged look. It was 
thin on the ground. There were not plants enough to take up 
and evaporate the large amount of water which fell during the 
wet season. Such a condition of things rarely occurs in this 
country. We sow timothy with our winter wheat, in the 
autumn, and red clover in the spring. After the wheat is 
harvested, we frequently have a heavy growth of clover in the 
autumn. In such circumstances I believe there would be com- 
paratively little loss of nitrogen. 

In the summer-fallow experiments, which have now been 
continued for twenty-seven years, there has been a great loss of 
nitrogen. The same remarks apply to this case. No one ever 
advocates summer-fallowing land every other year, and sow- 
ing nothing but wheat. When we summer-fallow a piece of 
land for wheat, we seed it down with grass and clover. 



INTRODUCTION TO NEW EDITION. XIX 

There is, as a rule, very little loss of nitrogen by drainage while 
the wheat is growing on the ground, but after the wheat is cut, 
the grass and clover are pretty sure to take up all the available 
nitrogen within the range of their roots. This summer-fallow 
experiment, instead of affording an argument against the use 
of summer-fallowing, is an argument in its favor. The sum- 
mer-fallow, by exposing the soil to the decomposing influences 
of the atmosphere, converts more or less of the inert nitro- 
genous organic matter into ammonia and nitric acid. This is 
precisely what a farmer wants. It is just what the wheat crop 
needs. But we must be very careful, when we render the ni- 
trogen soluble, to have some plant ready to take it up, and not 
let it be washed out of the soil during the winter and early 
spring. 

We have much poor land in the United States, and an im- 
mense area of good land. The poor land will be used to grow 
timber, or be improved by converting more or less of it, gradu- 
ally, into pasture, and stocking it with sheep and cattle. The 
main point is, to feed the sheep or cattle with some rich nitro- 
genous food, such as cotton-seed cake, malt-sprouts, bran, 
shorts, mill-feed, refuse beans, or bean-meal made from beans 
injured by the weevil, or bug. In short, the owner of such 
land must buy such food as will furnish the most nutriment 
and make the richest manure at the least cost — taking both of 
these objects into consideration. He will also buy more or less 
artificial manures, to be used for the production of fodder 
crops, such as com, millet, Hungarian grass, etc. And, as soon 
as a portion of the land can be made rich enough, he will grow 
more or less mangel wurzels, sugar beets, turnips, and other 
root crops. Superphosphate will be found admirably adapted for 
this purpose, and two, three, or four hundred pounds of cheap 
potash salts, per acre, can frequently be used on fodder crops, 
in connection with two or three hundred pounds of superphos- 
phate, with considerable profit. The whole subject is well 
worthy of careful study. Never in the history of the world 
has there been a grander opportunity for the application of 
science to the improvement of agriculture than now. 

On the richer lands, the aim of the farmer will be to convert 
the plant food lying dormant in the soil into profitable crops. 
The main point is good tillage. In many cases weeds now run 
away with half our crops and all our profits. The weeds which 
spring up after the grain crops are harvested, are not an un- 
mixed evil. They retain the nitrogen and other plant food, and 



XX TALKS OK MANURES. 

when turned under make manure for the succeeding crops. 
But weeds among the growing crop are evil, and only an evil. 
Thorough plowing is the remedy, accompanied by drainage 
where needed. 

We have an immense number of farms on which there are 
both good and poor land. In such cases we must adopt a com- 
bined system. We must grow large crops on the rich land and 
use them, at least in part, to make manure for the poorer por- 
tions of the farm. Drainage and good tillage will convert 
much of our low, ?.lluvial lands into a perfect mine of wealth. 
And much of our high, rolling land consists of strong loam, 
aboundmg in plant food. Such land requires little more than 
thorough tillage, with perhaps two hundred pounds of super- 
phosphate per acre, to enable it to produce good grain crops. 

After all is said and done, farming is a business that requires 
not merely science, but industry, economy, and common sense. 
The real basis of success is faith, accompanied with good works. 
I cannot illustrate this better than by alluding to one of my 
neighbors, a strong, healthy, intelligent, observing and enter- 
prising German, who commenced life as a farm laborer, and is 
to-day worth at least one hundred thousand dollars, that he 
has made, not by the advance of suburban property, but by 
farming, pure and simple. He first rented a farm, and then 
bought it, and in a few years he bought another farm adjoin- 
ing the first one, and would to-day buy another if he found one 
that suited him. He has faith in farming. Some people think 
he " runs his land," and, in fact, such is the case. He keeps 
good teams, and good plows, and good harrows, and good 
rollers, and good cultivators, and good grade Shorthorn cows. 
He acts as though he believed, as Sir John B. Lawes says, that 
" the soil is a mine," out of which he digs money He runs 
his land for all it is worth. He raises wheat, barley, oats, com, 
potatoes, and hay, and when he can get a good price for his 
timothy hay, he draws it to market and sells it. Thorough til- 
lage is the basis of his success. He is now using phosphates 
for wheat, and will probably io crease his herd of cows and 
make more manure. He has great faith in manure, but acts 
as though he had still greater faith in good plowing, early 
sowing, and thorough cultivation. 



PBEFAOE TO FIRST EDITION, 



The Printers have got our " Talks on Manures " in type ; and 
the publishers want a Preface. 

The Deacon is busy hoeing his corn ; the Doctor is gone to Rice 
Lake, fishing ; Charley is cultivating mangels ; the Squire is hay- 
ing, and I am here alone, with a pencil in hand and a sheet of 
blank paper before me. I would far rather be at work. In fact, 
I have only just come in from the field. 

Now, what shall I say? It will do no good to apologize for the 
deficiencies of the book. If the critics condescend to notice it at 
all, nothing I can say will propitiate their favor, or moderate their 
censure. They are an independent set of fellows ! I know them 
well, I am an old editor myself, and nothing would please me 
better than to sit down and write a slashing criticism of these 
" Talks on Manures." 
But I am denied that pleasure. The critics have the floor. 
All I will say here, is, that the book is what it pretends to be. 
Some people seem to think that the " Deacon " is a fictitious char- 
acter. Nothing of the kind. He is one of the oldest farmers in 
town, and lives on the farm next to me. I have the very highest 
respect for him. I have tried to report him fully and correctly. 
Of my own share in the conversations I will say little, and of the 
Doctor's nothing. My own views are honestly given. I hold my- 
self responsible for them. I may contradict in one chapter what I 
have asserted in another. And so, probably, has the Deacon. I 
do not know whether this is or is not the case. I know very well 
that on many questions "much can be said on both sides"— and 
very likely the Deacon is sometimes on the south side of the fence 
and I on the north side ; and in the next chapter you may find the 
Deacon on the north side, and where would you have me go, ex- 
cept to the south side ? We cannot see both sides of the fence, if 
both of us walk on the same sidei 

I fear some will be disappointed at not finding a particular sub- 
ject discussed. 
I have talked about those things which occupy my own thoughts. 
XXI 



XXII PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 

There are some things not worth thmking about. There are others 
beyond my reach. 

I have said nothing about manures for cotton or for the sugar- 
cane—not because I feel no interest in the matter, but because I 
have had no experience in the cultivation of these important crops. 
I might have told what the crops contain, and could have given 
minute directions for furnishing in manure the exact quantity of 
plant-food which the crops remove from the soil. But I have no 
faith in such a system of farming. The few cotton-planters I have 
had the pleasure of seeing were men of education and rare ability. 
I cannot undertake to offer them advice. But I presume they will 
find that, if they desire to increase the growth of the cotton-plant, 
in nine cases out of ten they can do it, provided the soil is properly 
worked, by supplying a manure containing available nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid, and potash. But the proper proportion of these 
ingredients of plant-food must be ascertained by experiment, and 
not from a mere analysis of the cotton-plant. 

I have much faith in artificial manures. They will do great 
things for American agriculture— directly, and indirectly. Their 
general use will lead to a higher system of farming — to better cul- 
tivation, more root and fodder crops, improved stock, higher feed- 
ing, and richer manure. But it has been no part of my object to 
unduly extol the virtues of commercial manures. That may be left 
to the manufacturers. 

My sympathy is with the farmer, and especially with the farmer 
of moderate means, who finds that improved farming calls for 
more and more capital. I would like to encourage such a man. 
And so, in point of fact, would the Deacon, though he often talks 
as though a man who tries to improve his farm will certainly come 
to poverty. Such men as the Beacon are useful neighbors if their 
doubts, and head-shakings, and shoulder-shruggings lead a young 
and enthusiastic farmer to put more energy, industry, and economy 
into his business. It is well to listen to the Deacon — to hear all his 
objections, and then to keep a sharp look-out for the dangers and 
difficulties, and go-ahead. 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



CHAPTER I. 

FARMING A8 A BUSINESS. 

" Farming is a poor business," said the Deacon. " Take the corn 
crop. Thirty bushels per acre is a fair average, worth, at 75 cents 
per bushel, $23.50. If we reckon that, for each bushel of corn, we 
get 100 lbs. of stalks, this would be a ton and a half per acre, worth 

at $5 per ton $7.50." 

Total receipts per acre for corn crop $30 00 

Expenses. — Preparing the land for the crop $5 00 

Planting and seed 1 60 

Cultivating, three times, twice in a row both 

ways 5 00 

Hoeing twice 3 00 

Cutting up the corn ; 1 50 

Husking and dra wing in the corn 4 00 

Drawing in the stalks, etc 1 00 

Shelling, and drawing to market 2 00 

Total cost of the crop , $23 00 

Profit per acre $7 GO 

" And from this," said the Deacon, '* we have to deduct interest 
on land and taxes. I tell you, farming is a poor business." 

" Yes," I replied, " poor farming is a very poor business. But 
good farming, if we have good prices, is as good a business as I 
want, and withal as pleasant. A good farmer raises 75 bushels 

(9) 



10 



TALKS ON MANURES, 



of corn per acre, instead of 30. He would get for his crop, 

including stalks $75 00 

Expenses.— Preparing land for the crop $5 00 

Planting and seed -. 1 50 

Cultivating 5 00 

Hoeing 3 00 

Cutting up the corn 1 50 

Husking and drawing. .,«. 10 00 

Drawing in the stalks 3 00 

Shelling, etc 6 00 

$35 00 

Profit per acre $40 00 

Take another case, which actually occurred in this neighborhood. 
The Judge is a good farmer, and particularly successful in raising 
potatoes and selling them at a good price to hotels and private 
families. He cultivates very thoroughly, plants in hills, and puts 
a handful of ashes, plaster, and hen-manure, on the hill. 

In 1873, his crop of Peach blows was at the rate of 208 bushels 
per acre. Of these, 200 bushels were sold at 60 cents per bushel. 
There were 8 bushels of small potatoes, worth say 12^ cents per 
bushel, to feed out to stock. 

Mr. Sloe, who lives on an adjoining farm, had tliree acres of 
Peachblow potatoes the same year. The yield was 100 bushels per 
acre — of which 25 bushels were not large enough for market, lie 
got 50 cents per bushel for the others. 

The account of the two crops stands as follows: 



Expenses Per Acre: 



Plowing, harrowing, rolling, marking, plant- 
ing, and covering 

Seed 



Hoeing, cultivating, etc, 
Digging 



Heceipts Per Acre: 

75 bushels, @ 50c 

25 '' (^12ic 



200 bushels, @60c.. 
8 " (€b 12ic. 



Profit per acre $10 62 



3fr.Sloe 



Judge. 



$ 8 00 


$ 8 00 


5 00 


5 00 


7 00 


10 00 


10 00 


10 00 


30 00 


33 00 


37 50 




3 12 




40 62 






120 00 




1 00 




121 00 



$98 00 



Since then, Mr. Sloe has been making and using more manure, 
and the year before last (1875) his crop of potatoes averaged over 



FARMING AS A BUSINESS. 11 

200 bushels per acre, and on the sandy knolls, where more manure 
was applied, the yield was at least 250 bushels per acre. 

"Nevertheless," said the Deacon, "I do not believe in 'high 
- farming.' It will not pay." 

" Possibly not," I replied. "It depends on circumstances; and 
these we will talk about presently. High farming aims to get 
large crops every year. Good farming produces equally large crops 
per acre, but not so many of theiu. This is what I am trying to 
do on my own farm. I am aiming to get 35 bushels of wheat per 
acre, 80 bushels of shelled corn, 50 bushels of barley, 90 bushels of 
oats, 300 bushels of potatoes, and 1,200 bushels of mangel-wurzel 
per acre, on the average. I can see no way of paying high wages 
except by raising large crops per acre. But if I get these large 
crops it does not necessarily follow that I am practising ' high 
farming.' " 

To illustrate: Suppose I should succeed in getting such crops 
by adopting the following plan. I have a farm of nearly 300 acres, 
one quarter of it being low, alluvial land, too wet for cultivation, 
but when drained excellent for pasturing cows or for timothy 
meadows. I drain this land, and after it is drained I dam up some 
of the streams that flow into it or through it, and irrigate wherever 
I can make the water flow. So much for the low land. 

The upland portion of the farm, containing say 200 acres, ex- 
clusive of fences, roads, buildings, garden, etc., is a naturally fertile 
loam, as good as the average wheat land of Western New York. 
But it is, or was, badly " run down." It had been what people call 
" worked to death ; " although, in point of fact, it had not been 
half- worked. Some said it was " wheated to death," others that it 
had been " oated to death," others that it had been " grassed to 
death," and one man said to me, " That field has had sheep on it 
until they have gnawed every particle of vegetable matter out of 
the soil, and it will not now produce enough to pasture a flock of 
geese." And he was not far from right — notwithstanding the fact 
that sheep are thought to be, and are, the best animals to enrich 
land. But let me say, in passing, that I have since raised on that 
same field 50 bushels of barley per acre, 33 bushels of Diehl wheat, 
a great crop of clover, and last year, on a part of it, over 1,000 
bushels of mangel-wurzel per acre. 

But this is a digression. Let us carry out the illustration. What 
does this upland portion of the farm need ? It needs underdrain- 
ing, thorough cultivation, and plenty of manure. If I had plenty 
of manure, I could adopt high farming. But where am I to get 
plenty of manure for 200 acres of land? "Make it," says the 



12 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Deacon. Very good ; but what shall I make it of ? " Make it out 
of your straw and stalks and hay. " So I do, but all the straw and 
stalks and hay raised on the farm when I bought it would not 
make as much manure as " high farming" requu'es for five acres 
of land. And is this not true of half the farms in the United 
States to day ? What then, shall we do ? 

The best thing to do, theoretically, is this : Any land that is pro- 
ducing a fair crop of grass or clover, let it lie. Pasture it or mow 
it for hay. If you have a field of clayey or stiff loamy land, break 
it up in the fall, and summer-fallow it the next year, and sow it to 
wheat and seed it down with clover. Let it lie two or three years 
in clover. Then break it up in July or August, " fall-fallow " it, 
and sow it with barley the next spring, and seed it down again 
with clover. ^ 

Sandy or light laud, that it will not pay to summer-fallow, 
should have all the manure you can make, and be plowed and 
planted with corn. Cultivate thoroughly, and either seed it down 
with the corn in August, or sow it to barley or oats next spring, 
and seed it down with clover. I say, theoretically this is the best 
plan to adopt. But practically it may not be so, because it may be 
absolutely necessary that we should raise something that we can 
sell at once, and get money to live upon or pay interest and taxes. 
But the gentlemen who so strenuously advocate high farming, are 
not perhaps often troubled with considerations of this kind. Meet- 
ing them, therefore, on their own ground, I contend that in my 
case " high farming " would not be as profitable as the plan hinted 
at above. 

The rich alluvial low land is to be pastured or mown ; the upland 
to be broken up only when necessary, and when it is plowed to be 
plowed well and worked thoroughly, and got back again into 
clover as soon as possible. The hay and pasture from the low 
land, and the clover and straw and stalks from the upland, would 
enable us to keep a good many cows and sheep, with more or less 
pigs, and there would be a big pile of manure in the yard every 
spring. And when this is once obtained, you can get along much 
more pleasantly and profitably. 



" But," I may be asked, " when you have got this pile of manure 
can not you adopt high farming ? " Ko. My manure pile would 
contain say : 60 tons of clover-hay ; 20 tons wheat-straw ; 25 tons 
oat, barley, and pea-straw; 40 tons meadow-hay; 20 tons corn- 
stalks ; 20 tons corn, oats, and other grain ; 120 tons mangel-wurzel 
ftnd turnips. 



FARMING AS A BUSINESS. 13 

This would give me about 500 tons of well-rotted manure. I 
should want 200 tons of this for the mangels and turnips, and the 
300 tons I should want to top-dress 20 acres of grass land intended 
for corn and potatoes the next year. My pile of manure, there- 
fore, is all used up on 25 to 30 acres of land. In other words, I use 
the unsold produce of 10 acres to manure one. Is this " high 
farming ? " I think in my circumstances it is good farming, but it 
is not high farming. It gives me large crops per acre, but I have 
comparatively few acres in crops that are sold from the farm. 

"High farming," if the term is to have any definite meaning at 
all, should only be used to express the idea of a farm so managed 
that the soil is rich enough to produce maximum crops every year. 
If you adopt the system of rotation quite general in this section — 
say, 1st year, co:n on sod; 2d, barley or oats; 3d, wheat; 4th, 
clover for hay and afterwards for seed ; 5th, timothy and clover 
for hay ; and then the 6th year plowed up for corn again — it would 
be necessary to make the land rich enough to produce say 100 
bushels shelled corn, 50 bushels of barley, 40 bushels of wheat, 3 
tons clover-hay, and 5 bushels of clover-seed, and 3 tons clover and 
timothy-hay per acre. This would be moderate high farming. If 
we introduced lucern, Italian lye-grass, corn-fodder, and mangel- 
wurzel into the rotation, we should need still richer land to produce 
a maximum growth of these crops. In other words, we should 
need more manure. 

The point I am endeavoring to get at, is this : "Where you want 
a farm to be self-supporting — where you depend solely on the pro- 
duce of the farm to supply manure — it is a sheer impossibility to 
adopt high farming on the whole of your land. I want to raise just 
as large crops per acre as the high farmers, but there is no way of 
doing this, unless we go outside the farm for manure, without 
raising a smaller area of such crops as are sold from the farm. 



I do not wish any one to suppose that I am opposed to high farm- 
ing. There is occasionally a farm where it may be practised with 
advantage, but it seems perfectly clear to my mind that as long as 
there is such an unlimited supply of land^ and such a limited sup- 
ply of fertilizers, most of us will find it more profitable to develop 
the latent stores of plant-food lying dormant in the soil rather than 
to buy manures. And it is certain that you can not adopt high 
farming without either buying manure directly, or buying food to 
feed to animals that shall make manure on the farm. 

And you must recollect that high farmmg requires an increased 



14 TALKS ON MANURES, 

supply of labor, and hired help is a luxury almost as costly as 
artificial fertilizers. 



"We have heard superficial thinker^ object to agricultural papers 
on the ground that they were urging farmers to improve their land 
and produce larger crops, *' while," say they, " we are producing so 
much already that it will not sell for as much as it costs to produce 
it." My plan of improved agriculture does not necessarily imply 
the production of any more wheat or of any more grain of any 
kind that vfe sell than we raise at present. I would simply raise 
it on fewer acres, and thus lessen the expense for seed, cultivation, 
harvesting, etc. I would raise 30 bushels of wheat per acre every 
third year, instead of 10 bushels every year. 

If we summer-fallowed and plowed under clover in order to pro- 
duce the 30 bushels of wheat once in three years, instead of 10 
bushels every year, no more produce of any kind would be raised. 
But my plan does not contemplate such a result. On my own 
farm I seldom summer-fallow, and never plow under clover. I 
think I can enrich the farm nearly as much by feeding the clover 
to animals and returning the manure to the land. The animals do 
not take out more than from five to ten per cent of the more valu- 
able elements of plant-food from the clover. And so my plan, 
while it produces as much and no more grain to sell, adds greatly 
to the fertility of the land, and gives an increased production of 
beef, mutton, wool, butter, cheese, and pork. 

" But what is a man to do who is poor and has poor land ? " If 
he has good health, is industrious, economical, and is possessed of 
a fair share of good common sense, he need have no doubt as to 
being able to renovate his farm and improve his own fortune. 

Faith in good farming is the first requisite. If this is weak, it 
will be strengthened by exercise. If you have not faith, act as 
though you had. 

"Work hard, but do not be a drudge. A few hours' vigorous labor 
will accomplish a great deal, and encourage you to continued effort. 
Be prompt, systematic, cheerful, and enthusiastic. Go to bed early 
and get up when you wake. But take sleep enough. A man had 
better be in bed than at the tavern or grocery. Let not friends, 
even, keep you up late ; ''manners is manners, but still your elth's 
your elth." 

*' But what has this to do with good farming ? " More than 
chemistry and all the science of the schools. Agriculture is an art 
and must be followed as sucli. Science will help — help enormously 
— but it will never enable us to dispense with industry. Chemistry 



FARMING AS A BUSINESS. 15 

throws great light on the art of cooking, but a farmer's wife will 
roast a turkey better than a Liebig. 

When Mr. James O. Sheldon, of Greneva, N. Y., bought his farm, 
his entire crop of hay the first year was 76 loads. He kept stock, 
and bought more or less grain and bran, and in eleven years from 
that time bis farm produced 430 loads of hay, afforded pasture for 
his large herd of Shorthorn cattle, and produced quite as much 
grain as when he first took it. 

Except in the neighborhood of large cities, "high farming" may 
not pay, owing to the fact that we have so much land. But whether 
this is so or not, there can be no doubt that the only profitable 
system of farming is to raise large crops on such land as we culti- 
vate. High farming gives us large crops, and many of them. At 
present, while we have so much land in proportion to population, 
we must, perhaps, be content with large crops of grain, and few of 
them. We must adopt the slower but less expensive means of 
enriching our land from natural sources, rather than the quicker, 
more artificial, and costly means adopted by many farmers in 
England, and by market gardeners, seed-growers, and nurserymen 
in this country. Labor is so high that we can not aflTord to raise a 
small crop. If we sow but half the number of acres, and double 
the yield, we should quadruple our profits. I have made up my 
mind to let the land lie in clover three years, instead of two. This 
will lessen the number of acres under cultivation, and enable us to 
bestow more care in plowing and cleaning it. And the laud will 
be richer, and produce better crops. The atmosphere is capable 
of supplying a certain quantity of ammonia to the soil in rains and 
dews every year, and by giving the wheat crop a three years sup- 
ply instead of two years, we gain so much. Plaster the clover, 
top-dress it in the fall, if you have the manure, and stimulate its 
growth in every way possible, and consume all the clover on the 
land, or in the barn-yard. Do not sell a single ton ; let not a weed 
grow, and the land will certainly improve. 

The first object should be to destroy weeds. I do not know how 
it is in other sections, but with us the majority of farms are com- 
pletely overrun with w-eeds. They are eating out the life of the 
land, and if something is not done to destroy them, even exorbitant- 
ly high prices can not make farming profitable. A farmer yester- 
day was contending that it did not pay to summer-fallow. He 
has taken a run-down farm, and a year ago last spring he plowed 
up ten acres of a field, and sowed it to barley and oats. The re- 
mainder of the field he summer-fallowed, plowing it four times, 
and rolling and harrowing thoroughly after each plowing. After 



16 TALKS ON MANUKES. 

the barley and oats were off, he plowed the land once, harrowed it, 
and sowed Mediterranean wheat. On the summer-fallow he 
drilled in Diehl wheat. He has just threshed, and got 22 bushels 
per acre of Mediterranean wheat , after the spring crop, at one 
plowing, and 26 bushels per acre of Diehl wheat on the summer- 
fallow. This, he said, would not pay, as it cost him $20 per acre 
to summer-fallow, and he lost the use of the land for one season. 
Now this may be all true, and yet it is no argument against sum- 
mer-fallowing. Wait a few years. Farming is slow work. Mr. 
George Geddes remarked to me, when I told him I was trying to 
renovate a run-down farm, " you will find it the work of your 
life." We ought not to expect a big crop on poor, run-down land, 
simply by plowing it three or four times in as many months. Time 
is required for the chemical changes to take place In the soil. But 
watch the effect on the clover for the next two years, and when 
the land is plowed again, see if it is not in far better condition than 
the part not summer-fallowed. I should expect the clover on the 
summer-fallow to be fully one-third better in quantity, and of bet- 
ter quality than on the other part, and this extra quantity of clover 
will make an extra quantity of good manure, and thus we have the 
means of going on with the work of improving the farm. 

*' Yes," said the Doctor, " and there will also be more clover- 
roots in the sail." 

" But I can not afford to w^ait for clover, and summer-fallowing," 
writes an intelligent New York gentleman, a dear lover of good 
stock, who has bought an exhausted New England farm, " I must 
have a portion of it producing good crops right off." Very well. 
A farmer with plenty of money can do wonders in a short time. 
Set a gang of ditchers to work, and put in underdrains where most 
needed. Have teams and plows enough to do the work rapidly. 
As soon as the land is drained and plowed, put on a heavy roller. 
Then sow 500 lbs. of Peruvian guano per acre broadcast, or its 
equivalent in some other fertilizer. Follow with a Shares' harrow. 
This will mellow the surface and cover the guano without dis- 
turbing the sod. Follow with a forty-toothed barrow, and roll 
again, if needed, working the land until there is three or four 
inches of fine, mellow surface soil. Then mark off the land in 
rows as straight as an arrow, and plant corn. Cultivate thoroughly, 
and kill every weed. If the ditchers can not get through until it 
is too late to plant corn, drill in beans on the last drained part of 
the field. 

Another good crop to raise on a stock farm is corn-fodder. 
This can be drilled in from time to time as the land can be got 



FARMING AS A BUSINESS. 17 

ready. Put on half a ton of guano per acre and harrow in, and 
then mark off the rows three feet apart, and drill in four bushels 
of corn per acre. Cultivate thoroughly, and expect a great crop. 
By the last of July, the Ayrshire cows will take kindly to the suc- 
culent corn-fodder, and with three or four quarts of meal a day, 
it will enable each of them to make 10 lbs. of butter a week. 

For the pigs, sow a few acres of peas. These will do well on 
sod-land, sown early or late, or a part early and a part late, as 
most convenient. Sow broadcast and harrow in, 500 lbs. of Pe- 
ruvian guano per acre and 200 lbs. of gypsum. Drill in three 
bushels of peas per acre, or sow broadcast, and cover them with a 
Shares' harrow. Commence to feed the crop green as soon as the 
pods are formed, and continue to feed out the crop, threshed or 
unthreshed, until the middle of November. Up to this lime the 
bugs do comparatively little damage. The pigs will thrive won- 
derfully on this crop, and make the richest and best of manure. 

I have little faith in any attempt to raise root crops on land not 
previously well prepared. But as it is necessary to have some 
mangel-wurzel and Swede turnips for the Ayrshire cows and 
long-wool sheep next winter and spring, select the cleanest and 
richest land that can be found that was under cultivation last 
season. If fall plowed, the chances of success will be doubled. 
Plow the land two or three times, and cultivate, harrow, and roll 
until it is as mellow as a garden. Sow 400 lbs. of Peruvian guano 
and 300 lbs. of good superphosphate per acre broadcast, and har- 
row them in. Ridge up the land into ridges 2i to 3 ft. apart, with 
a double mould-board plow. Roll down the ridges with a light 
roller, and drill in the seed. Sow the mangel-wurzel in May— the 
earlier the better— and the Swedes as soon afterwards as the land 
can be thoroughly prepared. Better delay until June rather than 
sow on rough land. 

The first point on such a farm will be to attend to the grassland. 
This affords the most hopeful chance of getting good returns the 
first year. But no time is to be lost. Sow 500 lbs. of Peruvian 
guano per acre on all the grass land and on the clover, with 200 
lbs. of gypsum in addition on the latter. If this is sown early 
enough, so that the spring rains dissolve it and wash it mto the 
soil, great crops of grass may be expected. 

" But will it pay ? " My friend in New York is a very energetic 
and successful business man, and he has a real love for farming, 
and I have no sort of doubt that, taking the New York business 
and the farm together, they will afford a very handsome profit. 
Furthermore, I have no doubt that if, after he has drained it, he 



18 TALKS ON MANURES. 

would cover the whole farm with 500 lbs. of Peruvian guano per 
acre, or its equivalent, it would pay him better than any other 
agricultural operation he is likely to engage in. By the time it 
was on the land the cost would amount to about $20 per acre. If 
he sells no more grass or hay from the farm than he would sell if 
he did not use the guano, this $20 may very properly be added to 
the permanent capital invested in the farm. And in this aspect of 
the case, I have no hesitation in saying it will pay a high rate of 
interest. His bill for labor will be as much in one case as in the 
other ; and if he uses the guano he will probably double his crops. 
His grass lands will carry twenty cows instead of ten, and if he 
raises the corn-fodder and roots, he can probably keep thirty cows 
better than he could otherwise keep a dozen ; and, having to keep 
a herdsman in either case, the cost of labor will not be much in- 
creased. *' But you think it will not pay ? " It will probably not 
pay him. I do not think Ms business would pay me if I lived on 
my farm, and went to New York only once or twice a week. If 
there is one business above all others that requires constant atten- 
tion, it is farming — and especially stock-farming. But my friend 
is right in saying that he cannot afford to wait to enrich his land 
by clover and summer-fallowing. His land costs too much ; he 
has a large barn and everything requisite to keep a large stock of 
cattle and sheep. The interest on farm and buildings, and the 
money expended in labor, would run on while the dormant matter 
in the soil was slowly becoming available under the influence of 
good tillnge. The large barn must be filled at once, and the only 
way to do this is to apply manure with an unsparing hand. If he 
lived on the farm, I should have no doubt that, by adopting thia 
course, and by keeping improved stock, and feeding liberally, he 
could make money. Perhaps he can find a man who will success- 
fully manage the farm under his direction, but the probabilitiea 
are that his present profit and pleasure will come from the grat- 
ification of his early love for country life. 



WUAT IS MANUliE? 19 

CHAPTER II. 
WHAT IS MANURE? 

" What is the good of asking such a question as that ? " said the 
Deacon ; " we all know what manure is." 

" Well, then," I replied, " tell us what it is?" 

" It is anything that will make crops grow better and bigger" re- 
plied the Deacon. 

" That is not a bad definition," said I ; " but let us see if it is a 
true one. You have two rows of cabbage in the garden, and you 
water one row, and the plants grow bigger and better. Is water 
manure ? You cover a plant with a hand-glass, and it grows big- 
ger and better. Is a hand-glass manure ? You shelter a few 
plants, and they grow bigger and better. Is shelter manure ? 
You put some pure sand round a few plants, and they grow big- 
ger and better. Is pure sand manure ? I think we shall have to 
reject the Deacon's definition." 

Let us hear what the Doctor has to say on the subject. 

" Manure," replied the Doctor, " is the food of plants.^^ 

" That is a better definition," said I ; " but this is really not 
answering the question. You say manure is plant-food. But 
what is plant-food ?" 

" Plant-food," said the Doctor, " is composed of twelve ele- 
ments, and, possibly, sometimes one or two more, which we need 
not here talk about. Four of these elements are gases, oxygen, 
hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. When a plant or animal is 
burnt, these gases are driven off. The ashes which remain are 
composed of potash, soda, lime, and magnesia; sulphuric acid, 
phosphoric acid, chlorine, and silica. In other words, the ' food 
of plants ' is composed of four organic, or gaseous elements, and 
eight inorganic, or mineral elements, of which four have acid and 
four alkaline properties." 

" Thank you. Doctor," said the Deacon, " I am glad to know 
what manure is. It is the food of plants, and the food of plants 
is composed of four gases, four acid and four alkaline elements. 
I seem to know all about it. All I have wanted to make my land 
rich was plenty of manure, and now I shall know where to get 
it — oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen ; these four atmos- 
pheric elements. Then potash, soda, magnesia, and lime. I 
know what these four are. Then sulphur, phosphorous, silica 



20 TALKS ON MANURES. 

(sand,) and chlorine (salt). I shall soon have rich land and big 
crops." 

Charley, who has recently come home from college, where he 
has been studying chemistry, looked at the Deacon, and w^as evi- 
dently puzzled to understand him. Turning to the Doctor, Char- 
ley asked modestly if what the Doctor had said in regard to the 
composition of plant-food could not be said of the composition of 
all our animals and plants. 

"Certainly," replied the Doctor, "all our agricultural plants 
and all our animals, man included, are composed of these twelve 
elements, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen; phosphorus, 
sulphur, silica, chlorine, potash, soda, magnesia, and Ihne." 

Charley said something about lime, potash, and soda, not being 
" elements ;" and something about silica and chlorine not being 
found in animals. 

" Yes," said I, " and he has left out iron, which is an important 
constituent of all our farm crops and animals." Neither the Doc- 
tor nor the Deacon heard our remarks. The Deacon, who loves 
an argument, exclaimed : " I thought I knew all about it. You 
told us that manure was the food of plants, and that the food of 
plants was composed of the above twelve elements ; and now you 
tell us that man and beast, fruit and flower, grain and grass, root, 
stem, and branch, all are composed or made up of these same 
dozen elements. If I ask you what bread is made of, you say it 
is composed of the dozen elements aforesaid. If I ask what wheat- 
straw is made of, you answer, the dozen. If I ask what a thistle is 
made of, you say the dozen. There are a good many milk-weeds 
in my strawberry patch, and I am glad to know that the milk- weed 
and the strawberry are both composed of the same dozen elements. 
Manure is the food of plants, and the food of plants is composed 
of the above dozen elements, and every plant and animal that we 
eat is also composed of these same dozen elements, and so I sup- 
pose there is no difference between an onion and an omelet, or 
between bread and milk, or between mangel-wurzel and manure." 

"The difference," replied the Doctor, "is one of proportion. 
Mangels and manure are both composed of the same elements. In 
fact, mangels make good manure, and good manure makes good 
mangels." 

The Deacon and the Doctor sat down to a game of backgam- 
mon, and Charley and I continued the conversation more seriously. 



SOMETHING ABOUT PLANT-FOOD. 21 

CHAPTER III. 

SOMETHING ABOUT PLANT-FOOD. 

" The Doctor is in tlie main correct," said I; " but he does not 
fully answer the question, ' What is manure ? ' To say that manure 
is plant-food, does not cover the whole ground. All soils on which 
plants grow, contain more or less plant-food. A plant can not 
create an atom of potash. It can not get it from the atmosphere. 
"We find potash in the plant, and we know that it got it from the 
soil, and we are certain, therefore, that the soil contains potash. 
And so of all the other mineral elements of plants. A soil that 
will produce a thistle, or a pig-weed, contains plant-food. And so 
the definition of the Doctor is defective, inasmuch as it makes no 
distinction between soil and manure. Both contain plant-food." 
" What is your definition of manure ? " asked Charley ; " it 
would seem as though we all knew what manure was. We have 
got a great heap of it in the yard, and it is fermenting nicely." 

" Yes," I replied, " we are making more manure on the farm this 
winter than ever before. Two hundred pigs, 120 large sheep, 8 
horses, 11 cows, and a hundred head of poultry make considerable 
manure ; and it is a good deal of work to clean out the pens, pile the 
manure, draw it to the field, and apply it to the crops. We ought 
to know something about it ; but we might work among manure 
all our lives, and not know what manure is. At any rate, we 
might not be able to define it accuratel}^ I will, however, try my 
hand at a definition. 

" Let us assume that we have a field that is free from stagnant 
water at all seasons of the year ; that the soil is clean, mellow, 
and well worked seven inches deep, and in good order for putting 
in a crop. What the coming ' season ' will be we know not. It 
may be what we call a hot, dry summer, or it may be cool and 
moist, or it may be partly one and partly the other. The ' season' 
is a great element of uncertainty in all our farming calculations ; 
but we know that we shall have a season of some kind. We have 
the promise of seed-time and harvest, and we have never known 
the promise to fail us. Crops, however, vary very much, accord- 
ing to the season ; and it is necessary to bear this fact in mind. 
Let us say that the sun and heat, and rain and dews, or what we 
call ' the season,' is capable of producing 50 bushels of wheat per 
acre, but that the soil I have described above, does not produce 
over 20 bushels per acre. There is no mechanical defect in the 
soil. The seed is good, it is put in properly, and at the right time, 



22 TALKS ON MANURES. 

and in the best manner. No weeds choke the wheat plants or rob 
them of their food ; but that field does not produce as much wheat 
by 30 bushels per acre as the season is capable of producing. 
Why? The answer is evident, because the wheat plants do not 
find food enough in the soil. Now, anything that will furnish 
this food, anything that will cause that field to produce what the 
climate or season is capable of producing, is manure. A gardener 
may increase his crops by artificial heat, or by an increased supply 
of water, but this is not manure. The effect is due to improved 
climatic conditions. It has nothing to do with the question of 
manure. We often read in the agricultural papers about ' shade 
as manure.' We might just as well talk about sunlight as ' ma- 
nure.' The effects observed should be referred to modifications of 
the climate or season; and so in regard to mulching. A good 
mulch may often produce a larger increase of growth than an ap- 
plication of manure. But mulch, proper, is not manure. It is 
climate. It checks evaporation of moisture from the soil. We 
might as well speak of rain as manure as to call a mulch manure. 
In fact, an ordinary shower in summer is little more than a mulch. 
It does not reach the roots of plants ; and yet we see the effect 
of the shower immediately in the increased vigor of the plants. 
They are full of sap, and the drooping leaves look refreshed. We 
say the rain has revived them, and so it has ; but probably not a 
particle of the rain has entered into the circulation of the plant. 
The rain checked evaporation from the soil and from the leaves. 
A cool night refreshes the plants, and fills the leaves with sap, pre- 
cisely in the same way. All these fertilizing effects, however, 
belong to climate. It is inaccurate to associate either mulching, 
sunshine, shade, heat, dews, or rain, with the question of manure, 
though the efl'ect may in certain circumstances be precisely the 
same." 

Charley evidently thought I was wandering from the point. " You 
think, then," said he, " manure is plant-food that the soil needs ?^^ 

"Yes," said I, "that is a very good definition — very good, 
indeed, though not absolutely accurate, because manure is manure^ 
whether a particular soil needs it or not." Unobserved by us, the 
Deacon and the Doctor had been listening to our talk. — " I would 
like," said the Deacon, " to hear you give a better definition than 
Charley has given." — " Manure," said I, " is anything containing 
an element or elements of plant-food, which, if the soil needed it, 
would, if supplied in sufficient quantity, and in an available con- 
dition, produce, according to soil, season, climate, and variety, a 
maximum crop." 



NATUEAL MANURE. 23 

CHAPTER IV. 
NATURAL MANURE. 

We often hear about "natural" manure. I do not like the 
term, though I believe it originated with me. It is not accurate; 
not definite enough. 

" I do not know what you mean by natural manure," said the 
Deacon, " unless it is the droppings of animals."—" To distinguish 
them, I suppose," said the Doctor, " from artificial rnanures, such 
as superphosphate, sulphate of ammonia, and nitrate of soda." — 
" No ; that is not how I used the term. A few years ago, we 
used to hear much in regard to the 'exhaustion of soils.' I 
thought this phrase conveyed a wrong idea. When new land 
produces large crops, and when, after a few years, the crops get 
less and less, we were told that the farmers were exhausting their 
land. I said, no; the farmers are not exhausting the soil ; they 
are merely exhausting tlie accumulated plant-food in the soil. In 
other words, they are using up the natural manure. 

" Take my own farm. Fifty years ago, it was covered with a 
heavy growth of maple, beech, black walnut, oak, and other trees. 
These trees had shed annual crops of leaves for centuries. The 
leaves rot on the ground ; the trees also, age after age. These 
leaves and other organic matter foi*m what I have called natural 
manure. When the land is cleared up and plowed, this natural 
manure decays more rapidly than when the land lies undisturbed ; 
precisely as a manure-pile will ferment and decay more rapidly if 
turned occasionally, and exposed to the air. The plowing and 
cultivating renders this natural manure more readily available. 
The leaves decompose, and furnish food for the growing crop." 

EXHAUSTION OF THE SOIL. 

" You think, then," said the Doctor, " that when a piece of land 
is cleared of the forest, harrowed, and sown to wheat ; plowed 
and planted to corn, and the process repeated again and again, 
until the land no longer yields profitable crops, that it is the 
« natural manure,' and not the soil, that is exhausted ? " 

" I think the soil, at any rate, is not exhausted, and I can easily 
conceive of a case where even the natural manure is very far from 
being all used up." 

" Why, then," asked the Deacon, " is the land so poor that it 
will scarcely support a sheep to the acre ? " 



24 TALKS ON MANURES. 

" Simply because the natural manure and other plant-food 
which the soil contains is not in an available condition. It lies 
dead and inert. It is not soluble, and the roots of the plants can- 
not get enough of it to enable theni to thrive ; and in addition to 
this, you will find as a matter of fact that these poor ' exhausted ' 
farms are infested with weeds, which rob the growing crops of a 
large part of the scanty supply of available plant-food." 

*'But these weeds," said the Deacon, "are not removed from 
the farm. They rot on the land ; nothing is lost." 

*' True," said I, " but they, nevertheless, rob the growing crops 
of available plant-food. The annual supply of plant-food, instead 
of being used to grow useful plants, is used to grow weeds." 

" I understand that," said the Deacon, " but if the weeds are 
left on the land, and the useful plants are sold, the farmer who 
keeps his land clean would exhaust his land faster than the care- 
less farmer who lets his land lie until it is overrun with thistles, 
briars, and pig-weed. You agricultural "writers, who are con- 
stantly urging us to farm better and grow larger crops, seem to 
overlook this point. As you know, I do not take much stock la 
chemical theories as applied to agriculture, but as you do, here is 
a little extract I cut from an agricultural paper, that seems to 
prove that the better you work your land, and the larger crops 
you raise, the sooner you exhaust your land." 

The Deacon put on his spectacles, drew his chair nearer the 
lamp on the table, and read the following : 

" There is, on an average, about one-fourth of a pound of potash 
to every one hundred pounds of soil, and about one-eighth of a 
pound of phosphoric acid, and one-sixteenth of a pound of sul- 
phuric acid. If the potatoes and the tops are continually removed 
from the soil, it will soon exhaust the potash. If the wheat and 
straw are removed, it will soon exhaust the phosphate of lime ; 
if corn and the stalks, it will soon exhaust the sulphuric acid. 
Unless there is a rotation, or the material the plant requires is 
supplied from abroad, your crops will soon run out, though the 
soil will continue rich for other plants." 

" That extract," said I, " carries one back twenty-five years. 
We used to have article after article in this strain. We were told 
that ' always taking meal out of the tub soon comes to the bot- 
tom,' and always taking potash and phosphoric acid from the soil 
will soon exhaust the supply. But, practically, there is really little 
danger of our exhausting the land. It does not pay. The farm- 
er's resources will be exhausted long before he can exhaust his 
farm." 



NATURAL MANURE. 25 

" Assuming," said the Doctor, who is fond of an argument, 
" that the above statement is true, let us look at the facts. An 
acre of soil, 12 inches deep, would weigh about 1,600 tons; and if, 
as the writer quoted by the Deacon states, the soil contains 4 ozs. 
of potash in every 100 lbs. of soil, it follows that an acre of soil, 
12 inches deep, contains 8,000 lbs. of potash. Now, potatoes con- 
tain about 20 per cent of dry matter, and this dry matter con- 
tains, say, 4 per cent of ash, half of which is potash. It follows, 
therefore, that 250 bushels of potatoes contain about 60 lbs. of 
potash. If we reckon that the tops contain 20 lbs. more, or 80 
lbs. in all, it follows that the acre of soil contains potash enough 
to grow an annual crop of 250 bushels of potatoes per acre for one 
hundred years." 

"I know farmers," said Charley, "who do not get over 50 
bushels of potatoes per acre, and in that case the potash would 
last five hundred years, as the weeds grown with the crop are left 
on the land, and do not, according to the Deaccm, exhaust the 
soil." 

" Good for you, Charley," said the Doctor. " Now let us see 
about the phosphoric acid, of which the soil, according to the 
above statement, contains only half as much as it contains of pot- 
ash, or 4,000 lbs. per acre. 

" A crop of wheat of 30 bushels per acre," continued the Doc- 
tor, " contains in the grain about 26 lbs. of ash, and we will say 
that half of this ash is phosphoric acid, or 13 lbs. Allowing that 
the straw, chaff, etc., contain 7 lbs. more, we remove from the soil 
in a crop of wheat of 30 bushels per acre, 20 lbs. of phosphoric 
acid, and so, according to the above estimate, an acre of soil con- 
tains phosphoric acid to produce annually a crop of wheat and 
straw of 30 bushels per acre for tico liundred years, 

" The writer of the paragraph quoted by the Deacon," continued 
the Doctor, " selected the crops and elements best suited to his 
purpose, and yet, according to his own estimate, there is sufficient 
potash and phosphoric arid in the first 12 inches of the soil to 
enable us to raise unusually large crops until the ne s:t Centennial 
in 1976. 

" But let us take another view of the subject," continued the 
Doctor. "No intelligent farmer removes all the potatoes an(Z 
tops, all the wheat, straw, and chaff, or all the corn and stalks from 
bis farm. According to Dr. Salisbury, a crop of com of 75 bush- 
els per acre removes from the soil 600 lbs. of ash, but the grain 
contains only 46 lbs. The other 554 lbs. is contained in the stalks, 
etc., all of which are usually retained on the farm. It follows 
9. 



26 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



from this, that when only the ^ain is sold off the farm, it takes 
more than thirteen crops to remove as much mineral matter from 
the soil as is contained in the whole of one crop. Again, the ash 
of the grain contains less than 3 "per cent of sulphuric acid, so 
that the 46 lbs. of ash, in 75 bushels of corn, contains less than 1| 
lbs. of sulphuric acid, and thus, if an acre of soil contains 2,000 
lbs. of sulphuric acid, we have sufficient for an annual crop of 75 
bushels per acre for fifteen hundred years ! 

"As I said before," continued the Doctor, " intelligent farmers 
seldom sell their straw, and they frequently purchase and consume 
on the farm nearly as much bran, shorts, etc., as is sent to market 
with the grain they sell. In the ' Natural History of New York,' 
it is stated that an acre of wheat in Western New York, of 30 
bushels per acre, including straw, chaff", etc., removes from the 
soil 144 lbs. of mineral matter. Genesee wheat usually yields 
about 80 per cent, of flour. This flour contains only 0.7 per cent 
of mineral matter, while fine middlings contain 4 per cent ; coarse 
middlings, 5^ per cent ; shorts, 8 per cent, and bran 8^ per cent 
of mineral matter or ash. It follows from this, that out of the 144 
lbs. of mineral matter in the crop of wheat, less than 10 lbs. is 
contained in the flour. The remaining 134 lbs. is found in the 
straw, chaff", bran, shorts, etc., which a good farmer is almost sure 
to feed out on his farm. But even if the farmer feeds out none of 
his wheat-bran, but sells it all with his wheat, the 30 bushels of 
wheat remove from the soil only 26 lbs. of mineral matter ; and it 
would take more than five crops to remove as much mineral mat- 
ter as one crop of w^heat and straw contains. Allowing that half 
the ash of wheat is phosphoric acid, 30 bushels remove only 13 
lbs. from the soil, and if the soil contains 4,000 lbs., it will take 
three hundred and seven crops, of 30 bushels each, to exhaust it." 

*' That is to say," said Charley, " if all the straw and chaff is re- 
tained on the farm, and is returned to the land without loss of 
phosphoric acid." 

" Yes," said the Doctor, " and if all the bran and shorts, etc., 
were retained on the farm, it would take eight hundred crops to 
exhaust the soil of phosphoric acid; and it is admitted that of all 
the elements of plant-food, phosphoric acid is the one first to be 
exhausted from the soil." 

I have sold some timothy hay this winter, and propose to do so 
whenever the price suits. But some of my neighbors, w^ho do 
not hesitate to sell their own hay, think I ought not to do so, 
because I " write for the papers"! It ought to satisfy them to 
know that I bring back 30 cwt. of bran for every ton of hay I 



NATURAL MANURE. 27 

sell. My rule is to sell nothing but wheat, barley, beans, potatoes, 
clover-seed, apples, wool, mutton, beef, pork, and butter. Every- 
thing else is consumed on the farm— corn, peas, oats, mustard, 
rape, mangels, clover, straw, stalks, etc. Let us make a rough 
estimate of how much is sold and how much retained on a hun- 
dred-acre farm, leaving out the potatoes, beans, and live-stock. 
We have say : 
Sold. 

15 acres wheat, @ 40 bushels per acre 18 tons. 

5 " barley, @ 50 " " 6 " 

15 " clover seed, 4 " " If ton. 

Total sold 25* tons. 

Ketained on the farm. 

15 acres corn, @ 80 bushels per acre 331 tons. 

Com stalks from do 40 " 

5 acres barley straw 8 " 

10 " oats and peas, equal 80 bushels of oats 12i " 

Straw from do 20 " 

15 acres wheat-straw 25 " 

15 " clover-hay 25 " 

Clover-seed straw 10 " 

15 acres pasture and meadow, equal 40 tons hay 40 '' 

5 " mustard, equal 10 tons hay 10 " 

5 " rape, equal 10 tons hay 10 '* 

5 " mangels, 35 tons per acre, equal to 3 tons dry 15 " 

Leaves from do 3 " 

Total retained on the farm 252i tons. 

It would take a good many years to exhaust any ordinary soil 
by such a course of cropping. Except, perhaps, the sandy knolls, 
I think there is not an acre on my farm that would be exhausted 
in ten thousand years, and as some portions of the low alluvial 
soil will grow crops without manure, there will be an opportunity 
to give the poor, sandy knolls more than their share of plant-food. 
In this way, notwithstanding the fact that we sell produce and 
bring nothing back, I believe the whole farm will gradually 
increase in productiveness. The plant-food annually rendered 
available from the decomposition and disintegration of the inert 
organic and mineral matter in the soil, will be more than equal to 
that exported from the farm. If the soil becomes deficient in any- 
thing, it is likely that it will be in phosphates, and a little super- 
phosphate or bone-dust might at any rate be profitably used on. 
the rape, mustard, and turnips. 

The point in good farming is to develop from the latent stores 



28 TALKS ON MANURES. 

in the soil, and to accumulate enough available plant-food for the 
production of the largest possible yield of those crops which we 
sell. In other words, we want enough available plant-food in the 
soil to grow 40 bushels of wheat and 50 bushels of barley. I think 
the farmer who raises 10 tons for every ton he sells, will soon 
reach this point, and when once reached, it is a comparatively 
easy matter to maintain this degree of fertility. 

WHY OUR CROPS ARE SO POOR. 

" If the soil is so rich in plant-food," said the Deacon, " I again 
ask, why are our crops so poor ? " 

The Deacon said this very quietly. He did not seem to know 
that he had asked one of the most important questions in the 
whole range of agricultural science. It is a fact that a soil may 
contain enough plant-food to produce a thousand large crops, and 
yet the crops we obtain from it may be so poor as hardly to pay 
the cost of cultivation. The plant-food is there, but the plants 
cannot get at it. It is not in an available condition ; it is not sol- 
uble. A case is quoted by Prof. Johnson, where a soil was an- 
alyzed, and found to contain to the depth of one foot 4,652 lbs. of 
nitrogen per acre, but only 63 lbs. of this was in an available con- 
dition. And this is equally true of phosphoric acid, potash, and 
other elements of plant-food. No matter how much plant-food 
there may be in the soil, the only portion that is of any immediate 
value is the small amount that is annually available for the growth 
of crops. 

HOW TO GET LARGER CROPS. 

" I am tired of so much talk about plant-food," said the Deacon ; 
" what we want to know is how to make our land produce larger 
crops of wheat, corn, oats, barley, potatoes, clover, and grass." 

This is precisely what I am trying to show. On my own farm, 
the three leading objects are (1) to get the land drained, (2) to make 
it clean and mellow, and (3) to get available nitrogen for the cereal 
crops. A.-ter the first two objects are accomplished, the measure 
of productiveness will be determined by the amount of available 
nitrogen in the soil. How to get available nitrogen, therefore, is 
my chief and ultimate object in all the operations on the farm, 
and it is here that science can help me. I know how to get nitro- 
gen, but I want to get it in the cheapest way, and then to be sure 
that I do not waste it. 

There is one fact fully established by repeated experiment and 
general experience — that 80 lbs. of available nitrogen per acre, 



SWAMP-MUCK OR PEAT AS MANURE. 29 

applied in manure, will almost invariably give us a greatly in- 
creased yield of grain crops. I should expect, on my farm, that 
on land which, without manure, would give me 15 bushels of wheat 
per acre, such a dressing of manure would give me, in a favorable 
season, 35 or 40 bushels per acre, with a proportional increase of 
straw ; and, in addition to this, there would be considerable nitro- 
gen left for the following crop of clover. Is it not worth while 
making an earnest effort to get this 80 lbs. of available nitrogen ? 
I have on my farm many acres of low, mucky land, bordering 
on the creek, that probably contain several thousand pounds of 
nitrogen per acre. So long as the land is surcharged with water, 
this nitrogen, and other plant-food, lies dormant. But drain it, 
and let in the air, and the oxygen decomposes the organic matter, 
and ammonia and nitric acid are produced. In other words, we 
get amilable nitrogen and other plant-food, and the land becomes 
capable of producing large crops of corn and grass ; and the crops 
obtained from this low, rich land, will make manure for the poorer, 
upland portions of the farm. 



CHAPTER V. 
SWAMP-MUCK OR PEAT AS MANURE. 

" It would pay you," said the Deacon, " to draw out 200 or 300 
loads of muck from the swamp every year, and compost it with 
your manure." 

This may or may not be the case. It depends on the composi- 
tion of the muck, and how much labor it takes to handle it. 

" What you should do," said tlie Doctor, " is to commence at 
the creek, and straighten it. Take a gang of men, and be \yith 
them with yourself, or get a good foreman to direct operations. 
Commence at a, and straighten the creek to b, and from 6 to c (see 
map on next page). Throw all the rich, black muck in a heap by 
itself, separate from the sand. You, or your foreman, must be 
there, or you will not get this done. A good ditcher will throw out 
a great mass of this loose muck and sand in a day ; and you want 
him to dig, not think. You must do the thinking, and tell him 
which is muck, and which is only sand and dirt. When thrown 
up, this muck, in our dry, hot climate, will, in the course of a few 



30 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



months, part with a large amount of water, and it can then be drawn 
to the barns and stables, and used for bedding, or for composting 
with manure. Or if you do not want to draw it to the barn, get 
some refuse lime from the lime-ldln, and mix it with the muck 
after it has been thrown up a few weeks, and is partially dry. 
Turn over the heap, and put a few bushels of lime to every cord 
of the muck, mixing the lime and muck together, leaving the heap 
in a compact form, and in good shape, to shed the rain. 

" When you have straightened, and cleaned out, and deepened 
the creek," continued the Doctor, " commence at z on the new 
creek, and cut a ditch through the swamp to y. Throw the muck 
on one side, and the sand on the other. This will give you some 




-„X 



YV^. 



H/ 



MAP OP CREEK. 



^^-^ 



gooS, rich muck, and at the same time drain your swamp. Then 
cut some under-drains from y towards the higher land at w^ v, and 
hy and from / to x. These will drain your land, and set free the 
inert plant-food, and such crops of timothy as you will get from 
this swamp will astonish the natives, and your bill for medical at- 
tendance and quinine w^ill sink to zero." 

The Doctor is right. There is money and health in the plan. 

Prof. S. W. Johnson, as chemist to the Conn. State Ag. Society, 
made accurate analyses of 33 samples of peat and muck sent him 
by gentlemen from different parts of the State. The amount of 



WHAT IS POTENTIAL AMMONIA? 31 

potential ammonia in the ctiemically dry peat was found to vary 
from 0.58 in the poorest, to 4.06 per cent in tlie ricliest samples. 
In other words, one deposit of muck may contain seven times as 
much nitrogen as another, and it would be well before spending 
much money in drawing out muck for manure to send a sample of 
it to some good chemist. A bed of swamp-muck, easily acces- 
sible, and containing 3 per cent of nitrogen, would be a mine of 
wealth to any farmer. One ton of such muck, dry, would contain 
more nitrogen than 7 tons of straw. 

" It would be capital stuff," said the Deacon, " to put in your 
pig-pens to absorb the urine. It would make rich manure." 

" That is so," said I, " and the weak point in my pig-breedmg is 
the want of sufficient straw. Pigs use up more bedding than any 
other animals. I have over 200 pigs, and I could use a ton of dry 
muck to each pig every winter to great advantage. The pens 
would be drier, the pigs healthier, and the manure richer." 

The Doctor here interrupted us. "I see," said he, "that the 
average amount of ammonia in the 33 samples of dry peat analyzed 
by Professor Johnson is 2.07 per cent. I had no idea that muck was 
so rich. Barnyard manure, or the manure from the horse stables in 
the cities, contains only half a per cent (0.5) of ammonia, and it is 
an unusually rich manure that contains one per cent. We are safe 
in saying that a ton of dry muck, on the average, contains at least 
twice as much potential ammonia as the average of our best and 
richest stable-manure." 



CHAPTER VI. 
WHAT IS POTENTIAL AMMONIA? 

" You say," said the Deacon, " that dry muck contains twice as 
much '■potential ammonia'' as manure? ' ' 

" Yes," said the Doctor, " it contains three or four times as 
much as the half -rotted straw and stalks you call manure." 

"But what do you mean," asked the Deacon, "by 'potential 
ammonia?'" 

" It is a term," said the Doctor, " we used to hear much more fre- 
quently than we do now. Ammonia is composed of 14 lbs. of 
nitrogen and 3 lbs. of hydrogen ; and if, on analysis, a guano or 



t$a TALKS ON MANURES. 

Other manure was found to contain, in whatever form, 7 per cent 
of nitrosjen, the chemist reported that he found in it 8^ per cent 
of ' potential ' ammonia. Dried blood contains no ammonia, but 
if it contained 14 per cent of nitrogen, the chemist would be justi- 
fied in saying it contained 17 per cent of potential ammonia, from 
the fact that the dried blood, by fermentation, is capable of yield- 
ing this amount of ammonia. We say a ton of common horse- 
manure contains 10 or 12 lbs. of potential ammonia. If perfectly 
fresh, it may not contain a particle of ammonia ; but it contains 
nitrogen enough to produce, by fermentation, 10 or 12 lbs. of am- 
monia. And when it is said that dry swamp-muck contains, on 
the average, 2.07 per cent of potential ammonia, it simply means 
that it contains nitrogen enough to produce this amount of am- 
monia. In point of fact, I suppose muck, when dug fresh from 
the swamp, contains no ammonia. Ammonia is quite soluble in 
water, and if there was any ammonia in the swamp-muck, it 
would soon be washed out. The nitrogen, or ' potential ammonia,' 
in the muck exists in an inert, insoluble form, and before the 
muck will yield up this nitrogen to plants, it is necessary, in some 
way, to ferment or decompose it. But this is a point we will 
discuss at a future meeting." 



CHAPTEE VII. 

TILLAGE IS MANURE. 

• 

The Doctor has been invited to deliver a lecture on manure 
before our local Farmers' Club. " The etymological meaning of 
the word manure," he said, " is Jiaiid lahoi\ from mai7i^ hand, and 
ouvrer, to work. To manure the land originally meant to culti- 
vate it, to hoe, to dig, to plow, to harrow, or stir it in any way so 
as to expose its particles to the oxygen of the atmosphere, and 
thus render its latent elements assimilable by plants. 

" When our first parent," he continued, " was sent forth from 
the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken, 
he probably did not know that the means necessary to kill the 
thorns and thistles enhanced the productiveness of the soil, yet 
such was undoubtedly the case. 



TILLAGE IS MANURE. 33 

" The farmer for centuries was simply a * tiller of the ground.' 
Guano, though formed, according to some eminent authorities, 
long ages before the creation of man, was not then known. The 
coprolites lay undisturbed in countless numbers in the lias, the 
greensand, and the Suffolk crag. Charleston phosphates were 
unknown. Superphosphate, sulphate of ammonia, nitrate of soda, 
and kainit were not dreamed of. Nothing was said about the 
mineral manure theory, or the exhaustion of the soil. There were 
no frauds in artificial fertilizers ; no Experiment Stations. The 
earth, fresh from the hands of its Creator, needed only to be 
•tickled with a hoe to laugh with a harvest.' Nothing was said 
about the value of the manure obtained from the consumption of 
a ton of oil-cake, or malt-combs, or bran, or clover-hay. For 
many centuries, the hoe, the spade, and the rake constituted 
Adam's whole stock in trade. 

"At length," continued the Doctor, *'a great discovery was 
made. A Roman farmer — probably a prominent Granger — stum- 
bled on a mighty truth. Manuring the land — that is, hoeing and 
cultivating it — increased its fertility. This was well known — had 
been known for ages, and acted upon ; but this Roman farmer, 
Stercutius, who was a close observer, discovered that the droppings 
of animals had the same effect as hoeing. No wonder these idol- 
atrous people voted him a god. They thought there would be no 
more old-fashioned manuring ; no more hoeing. 

" Of course they were mistaken," continued the Doctor, " our 
arable land will always need plowing and cultivating to kill 
weeds. Manure, in the sense in which we now use the term, is 
only a partial substitute for tillage, and tillage is only a partial 
substitute for manure ; but it is well to bear in mind that the 
words mean the same thing, and the effects of both are, to a cer- 
tain extent, identical. Tillage is manure, and manure is tillage." 



34 TALKS ON MAJSrURES. 

CHAPTER VIII. 
SUMMER-FALLOWIISra. 

This is not tlie place to discuss tlie merits, or demerits, of fallow- 
ing. But an intelligent Ohio farmer writes me : — '* I see that you 
recommend fallow plowing, what are your reasons ? Granting 
that the immediate result is an increased crop, is not the land im- 
poverished ? Will not the thorough cultivation of corn, or pota- 
toes, answer as well ? " And a distinguished farmer, of this State, 
in a recent communication expressed the same idea — that summer- 
fallowing would soon impoverish the land. But if this is the case, 
the fault is not in the practice of summer-fallowing, but in growing 
too many grain crops, and selling them, instead of consuming them 
on the farm. Take two fields ; summer-fallow one, and sow it to 
wheat. Plant the other to corn, and sow wheat after it in the fall. 
You get, say 35 bushels of wheat per acre from the summer-fallow. 
From the other field you get, say, 30 bushels of shelled corn per 
acre, and 10 bushels of wheat afterwards. Now, where a farmer 
is in the habit of selling all his wheat, and consuming all his corn 
on the farm, it is evident that the practice of summer-fallowing 
will impoverish the soil more rapidly than the system of growing 
com followed by wheat — and for the simple reason that more 
wheat is sold from the farm. If no more grain is sold in one case 
than in the other, the summer-fallowing will not impoverish the 
soil any more than corn growing. 

My idea of fallowing is this:— The soil and the atmosphere 
furnish, on good, well cultivated land, plant-food sufficient, say, for 
15 bushels of wheat per acre, every year. It will be sometimes 
more, and sometimes less, according to the season and the character 
of the soil, but on good, strong limestone land this may be taken 
as about the average. To grow wheat every year in crops of 15 
bushels per acre, would impoverish the soil just as much as to 
summer-fallow and get 30 bushels of wheat every other year. It 
is the same thing in either case. But in summer-fallowing, we 
clean the land, and the profits from a crop of 30 bushels per acre 
every other year, are much more than from two crops of 15 bush- 
els every year. You know that Mr. Lawes has a field of about 
thirteen acres that he sows with wheat every year. On the plot 
that receives no manure of any kind, the crop, for twenty years, 
averaged 16^ bushels per acre. It is plowed twice every year, and 



SUMMER-FALLOWING. 35 

the wheat is hand-hoed in the spring to keep it clean. A few years 
ago, in a field adjoining this experimental wheat field, and that is 
of the same character of land, he made the following experiment. 
The land, after wheat, was fallowed, and then sown to wheat; 
then fallowed the next year, and again sown to wheat, and the next 
year it was sown to wheat after wheat. The following is the re- 
sult compared with the yield of the continuously unmanured plot 
in the experimental field that is sown to wheat every year : 

1. Tear— No. 1— Fallow No crop. 

No. a— Wheat after wheat 15 bushels 3i pecks per acre. 

2. Tear— No. 1— Wheat after fallow 37 " — " " 

No. 2— Wheat after wheat 13 " 3i " *' 

3. Tear— No. 1— Fallow after wheat No crop. 

No. 2— Wheat after wheat 15 bushels 3i pecks per acre. 

4. Tear— No. 1— Wheat after fallow 42 " — " " 

No. 2— Wheat after wheat 21 " Oi " " 

5. Tear— No. 1— Wheat after wheat 17 <' li " " 

No. 2— Wheat after wheat 17 " — «' 

Taking the first four years, we have a total yield from the plot 
sown every year of 66 bushels 21 pecks, and from the two crops 
alternately fallowed, a total yield of 79 bushels. The next year, 
when wheat was sown after wheat on the land previously fallowed, 
the yield was almost identical with the yield from the plot that has 
grown wheat after wheat for so many years. 

So far, these results do not indicate any exhaustion from the 
practice of fallowing. On the other hand, they tend to show that 
we can get more wheat by sowing it every other year, than by 
cropping it every year in succession. The reason for this may be 
found in the fact that in a fallow the land is more frequently ex- 
posed to the atmosphere by repeated plowings and harrowings ; and 
it should be borne in mind that the eflfect of stirring the land is not 
necessarily in proportion to the total amount of stirring, but is 
according to the number of times that fresh particles of soil are 
exposed to the atmosphere. Two plowings and two harrowings 
in one week, will not do as much good as two plowings and two 
harrowings, at different times in the course of three or four months. 
It is for this reason that I object, theoretically, to sowing wheat 
after barley. We often plow the barley stubble twice, and spend 
considerable labor in getting the land into good condition ; but it 
is generally all done in the course of ten days or two wrecks. We 
do not get any adequate benefit for this labor. We can kill weeds 
readily at this season, (August), but the stirring of the soil does 
not develope the latent plant-food to the extent it would if the 



36 TALKS ON MANURES. 

work was not necessarily done in such a limited period. I say 
theoretically, for in point of fact I do sow wheat after barley. I do 
so because it is very convenient, and because it is more immediately 
profitable. I am satisfied, however, that in the end it would be 
more profitable to seed down the barley with clover. 

We must raise larger crops ; and to do this we must raise them 
less frequently. This is the key-note of the coming improved 
system of American agriculture, in all sections where good land is 
worth less than one hundred dollars per acre. In the neighborhood 
of large dties, and wherever land commands a high price, we must 
keep our farms in a high state of fertility by the purchase of 
manures or cattle foods. Those of us in the interior, where we 
can not buy manure, must raise fewer grain crops, and more clover. 
We must aim to raise 40 bushels of wheat, 50 bushels of barley, 80 
bushels of oats, and 100 bushels of shelled corn, and 5 bushels of 
clover-seed per acre. That this can be done on good, well-drained 
land, from the unaided resources of the farm, I have no doubt. It 
may give us no more grain to sell than at present, but it will enable 
us to produce much more mutton, wool, beef, cheese, butter, and 
pork, than at present. 

" But, then, will there be a demand for the meat, wool, etc.?" 
The present indications are highly favorable. But we must aim 
to raise good meat. The low-priced beef and mutton sold in our 
markets are as unprofitable to the consumer as they are to the pro- 
ducer. We must feed higher, and to do this to advantage we must 
have improved stock. There is no profit in farming without good 
tillage, larger crops, improved stock, and higher feeding. The de- 
tails will be modified by circumstances, but the principles are the 
same wherever d^gvi-culture is practised. 



HOW TO RESTORE A WORX-OUT FARM. 37 

C H A P T E K IX. 

HOW TO RESTORE A WORN-OUT FARM. 

I have never yet seen a " worn-out ". or " exhausted farm." I 
know many farms that are " run down." I bought just such a 
farm a dozen or more years ago, and I have been trying hard, ever 
since, to bring it up to a profitable standard of productiveness — and 
am still trying, and expect to have to keep on trying so long as I 
keep on farming. The truth is, there never was a farm so rich, 
that the farmer did not wish it was richer. 

I have succeeded in making the larger part of my farm much 
more productive than it ever was before, since it was cleared from 
the original forest. But it is far from being as rich as I want it. 
The truth is, God sent us into this world to work, and He has 
given us plenty to do, if we will only do it. At any rate, this is 
true of farming. He has not given us land ready to our hand. 
The man who first cleared up my farm, had no easy task. He 
fairly earned all the good crops he ever got from it. I have never 
begrudged him one particle of the " natural manure " he took out 
of the land, in the form of wheat, corn, oats, and hay. On the 
dry, sandy knolls, he probably got out a good portion of this 
natural manure, but on the wetter and heavier portions of the farm, 
he probably did not get out one-hundredth part of the natural 
manure which the land contained. 

Now, when such a farm came into my possession, what was I to 
do with it ? 

" Tell us what you did," said the Doctor, " and then, perhaps, 
we can tell you what you ought to have done, and what you ought 
to have left undone." 

" I made many mistakes." 

" Amen," said the Deacon ; " I am glad to hear you acknowl- 
edge it." 

" Well," said the Doctor, "it is better to make mistakes in trying 
to do something, than to hug our self-esteem, and fold our hands 
in indolence. It has been said that critics are men who have failed 
in their undertakings. But I rather think the most disagreeable, 
and self-satisfied critics, are men who have never done an3'^thing, 
or tried to do anything, themselves." 

The Deacon, who, though something of an old fogy, is a good 
deal of a man, and possessed of good common sense, and much ex- 



38 TALKS ON MANURES. 

perience, took these remarks kindly. " Well," said he to me, " I 
must say that your farm has certainly improved, but you did things 
so differently from what we expected, that we could not see wiiat 
you were driving at." 

" I can tell you what I have been aiming at all along. 1st. To 
drain the wet portions of the arable land. 2d. To kill weeds, and 
make the -soil mellow and clean. 3d. To make more manure." 

"You have also bought some bone-dust, superphosphate, and 
other artificial manures." 

"True; and if I had had more money I would have bought 
more manure. It would have paid well. I could have made my 
land as rich as it is now in half the time," 

I had to depend principally on the natural resources of the land. 
I got out of the soil all I could, and kept as much of it as possible 
on the farm. One of the mistakes I made was, in breaking up too 
much land, and putting in too much wheat, barley, oats, peas, and 
corn. It would have been better for my pocket, though possibly 
not so good for the farm, if I had left more of the land in grass, 
and also, if I had summer-fallowed more, and sown less barley and 
oats, and planted less corn. • 

" I do not see how plowing up the grass land," said the Deacon, 
** could possibly be any better for the farm. You agricultural 
writers are always telling us that we plow too much land, and do 
not raise grass and clover enough." 

" "What I meant by saying that it would have been better for my 
pocket, though possibly not so good for the farm, if I had not 
plowed so much land, may need explanation. The land had been 
only half cultivated, and was very foul. The grass and clover 
fields did not give more than half a crop of hay, and the hay was 
poor in quality, and much of it half thistles, and other weeds. I 
plowed this land, planted it to corn, and cultivated it thoroughly. 
But the labor of keeping the com clean was costly, and absorbed a 
very large slice of the profits. But the com yielded a far larger 
produce per acre than I should have got had the land lain in grass. 
And as all this produce was consumed on the farm, we made more 
manure than if we had plowed less land." 

I have great faith in the benefits of thorough tillage— or, in other 
words, of breaking up, pulverizing, and exposing the soil to the 
decomposing action of the atmosphere. I look upon a good, strong 
soil as a kind of storehouse of plant-food. But it is not an easy 
matter to render this plant-food soluble. If it were any less solu- 
ble than it is, it would have all leached out of the land centuries 
ago. Turning over, and fining a manure-heap, if other conditions 



HOW TO RESTORE A WOEN-OUT FARM. 39 

are favorable, cause rapid fermentation with the formation of car- 
bonate of ammonia, and other soluble salts. Many of our soils, to 
the depth oi eight or ten inches, contain enough nitrogenous mat- 
ter in an acr3 to produce two or three thousand pounds of ammonia. 
By stirring the soil, and exposing it to the atmosphere, a small 
portion of this nitrogen becomes annually available, and is taken 
up by the growing crops. And it is so with the other eleme ts of 
plant-food. Stirring the soil, then, is the basis of agriculture. It 
has been said that we must return to the soil as much plant-food 
as we take from it. If this were true, nothing could be sold from 
the farm. What we should aim to do, is to develop as much as 
possible of the plant-food that lies latent in the soil, and not to sell 
in the form of crops, cheese, wool, or animals, any more of this 
plant-food than we annually develop from the soil. In this way 
the " condition " of the soil would remain the same. If we sell 
less than we develop, the condition of the soil will improve. 

By " condition," I mean the amount of available plant-food in the 
soil. Nearly all our farms are poorer in plant-food to-day than 
when first cleared of the original forest, or than they were ten, 
fifteen, or twenty years later. In other words, the plants and 
animals that have been sold from the farm, have carried off a con- 
siderable amount of plant-food. We have taken far more nitro- 
gen, phosphoric acid, potash, etc., out of the soil, than we have 
returned to it in the shape of manure. Consequently, the soil must 
contain less and less of plant food every year. And yet, while this 
is a self-evident fact, it is, nevertheless, true that many of these 
self -same farms are more productive now than when first cleared, 
or at any rate more productive than they were twenty-five or thirty 
years ago. 

Sometime ago, the Deacon and I visited the farm of Mr. Dewey, 
of Monroe Co., N. Y. He is a good farmer. He does not practice 
" high farming " in the sense in which I use that term. His is a 
good example of what I term slow farming. He raises large crops, 
but comparatively few of them. On his farm of 300 acres, he 
raises 40 acres of wheat, 17 acres of Indian corn, and 23 acres of 
oats, barley, potatoes, roots, etc. In other words, he has 80 acres 
in crops, and 320 acres in grass— not permanent grass. He lets it 
lie in grass five, six, seven, or eight years, as he deems best, and 
then breaks it up, and plants it to corn. The land he intends to 
plant to corn next year, has been in grass for seven years. He 
will put pretty mucli all his manure on this land. After corn, it 
will be sown to oats, or barley ; then sown to wheat, and seeded 
down again. It will then lie in grass three, four, five, six, or seven 



40 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

years, until he needs it again for corn, etc. This is " slow farm- 
ing," but it is also good farming — that is to say, it gives large 
yields per acre, and a good return for the labor expended. 

The soil of this farm is richer to-day in available plant-food than 
when first cleared. It produces larger crops per acre. 

Mr. D. called our attention to a fact that establishes this point. 
An old fence that had occupied the ground for many years was 
removed some years since, and the two fields thrown into one. 
Every time this field is in crops, it is easy to see where the old 
fence was, by the short straw and poor growth on this strip, as 
compared with the land on each side which had been cultivated 
for years. 

This is precisely the result that I should have expected. If Mr. 
D. was a poor farmer — if he cropped his land frequently, did not 
more than half -cultivate it, sold everything he raised, and drew 
back no manure — I think the old fence-strip would have given the 
best crops. 

The strip of land on which the old fence stood in Mr. Dewey's 
field, contained more plant-food than the soil on either side of it. 
But it was not available. It was not developed. It was latent, 
inert, insoluble, crude, and undecomposed. It was so much dead 
capital. The land on either side which had been cultivated for 
years, produced better crops. Why ? Simply because the stirring 
of the soil had developed more plant-food than had been removed 
by the crops. If the stirring of the soil developed 100 lbs. of plant- 
food a year, and only 75 lbs. were carried ofi" in the crops — 25 lbs. 
being left on the land in the form of roots, stubble, etc. — the land, 
at the expiration of 40 years, would contain, provided none of it 
was lost, 1,000 lbs. more available plant-food than the uncultivated 
strip. On the other hand, the latter would contam 3,000 lbs. more 
actual plant-food per acre than the land which had been cultivated 
— but it is in an unavailable condition. It is dead capital. 

I do not know that I make myself understood, though I would 
like to do so, because I am sure there is no point in scientific farm- 
ing of greater importance. Mr. Geddes calls grass the "pivotal 
crop" of American agriculture. He deserves our thanks for the 
word and the idea connected with it. But I am inclined to think 
the pivot on which our agriculture stands and rotates, lies deeper 
than this. The grass crop creates nothing — developes nothing. 
The untilled and unmanured grass lands of Herkimer County, in 
this State, are no richer to-day than they were 50 years ago. The 
pastures of Cheshire, England, except those that have been top- 
dressed with bones, or other manures, are no more productive than 



HOW TO MAKE MANURE. 41 

they were centuries back. Grass alone will not make rich land. 
It is a good " savings bank." It gathers up and saves plant-food 
from running to waste. It pays a good interest, and is a capital 
institution. But the real source of fertility must be looked for in 
the stores of plant-food lying dormant in the soil. Tillage, under- 
draining, and thorough cultivation, are the means by which we 
develop and render this plant-food available. Grass, clover, peas, 
or any other crop consumed on the farm, merely affords us the 
means of saving this plant-food and making it pay a good interest. 



CHAPTER X. 
HOW TO MAKE MANURE. 

If we have the necessary materials, it is not a difficult matter to 
make manure ; in fact, the manure will make itself. We some- 
times need to hasten the process, and to see that none of the fer- 
tilizing matter runs to waste. This is about all that we can do. 
We cannot create an atom of plant-food. It is ready formed to 
our hands ; but we must know where to look for it, and how to 
get it in the easiest, cheapest, and best way, and how to save and 
use it. The science of manure-making is a profound study. It is 
intimately connected with nearly every branch of agriculture. 

If weeds grow and decay on the land, they make manure. If 
we grow a crop of buckwheat, or spurry, or mustard, or rape, or 
clover, and mow it, and let it lie on the land, it makes manure ; or 
if we plow it under, it forms manure ; or if, after it is mown, we 
rake up the green crop, and put it into a heap, it will ferment, 
heat will be produced by the slow combustion of a portion of the 
carbonaceous and nitrogenous matter, and ihe result will be a mass 
of material, which we should all recognize as " manure." If, in- 
stead of putting the crop into a heap and letting it ferment, we 
feed it to animals, the digestible carbonaceous and nitrogenous 
matter will be consumed to produce animal heat and to sustain 
the vital functions, and the refuse, or the solid and liquid drop- 
pings of the animals, will be manure. 

If the crop rots on the ground, nothing is added to it. If it fer- 
ments, and gives out heat, in a heap, nothing is added to it. If it 



42 TALKS ON MANURES. 

is passed through an animal, and produces heat, nothing is added 
to it. 

I have heard people say a farmer could not make manure unless 
he kept animals. We might with as much truth say a farmer 
cannot make ashes unless he keeps stoves ; and it would be just 
as sensible to take a lot of stoves into the woods to make ashes, as 
it is to keep a lot of animals merely to make manure. You can 
make the ashes by throwing the wood into a pile, and burning it ; 
and you can make the manure by throwing the material out of 
which the manure is to be made into a pile, and letting it ferment. 
On a farm where neither food nor manure of any kind is pur- 
chased, the only way to make manure is to get it out of the land. 

" From the land and from the atmosphere," remarked the Doc- 
tor. " Plants get a large portion of the material of which they are 
composed from the atmosphere." 

" Yes," I replied, " but it is principally carbonaceous matter, 
which is of little or no value as manure. A small amount of am- 
monia and nitric acid are also brought to the soil by rains and 
dews, and a freshly-stirred soil may also sometimes absorb more 
or less ammonia from the atmosphere ; but while this is true, so 
far as makiog manure is concerned, we must look to the plant- 
food existing in the soil itself. 

" Take such a farm as Mr. Dewey's, that we have already 
referred to. Ko manure or food has been purchased ; or at any 
rate, not one-tenth as much as has been sold, and yet the farm is 
more productive to-day than when it was first cleared of the forest. 
He has developed the manure from the stores of latent plant-food 
previously existing in the soil • and this is the way farmers gen- 
erally make manure." 



VALUE OP MANURE. 43 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE VALUE OF MANURE DEPENDS ON THE FOOD— 
NOT ON THE ANIMAL. 

" If," said I, " you should put a ton of cut straw in a heap, wet it, 
and let it rot down into manure ; and should place in another heap 
a ton of cut corn-fodder, and in another heap a ton of cut clover- 
hay, wet them, and let them also rot down into manure ; and in 
another heap a ton of pulped-turnips, and in another heap a ton 
of corn-meal, and in another heap a ton of bran, and in another a 
ton of malt-sprouts, and let them be mixed with water, and so 
treated that they will ferment without loss of ammonia or other 
valuable plant-food, I think no one will say that all these different 
heaps of manure will have the same value. And if not, why not ? '* 

" Because," said Charley, " the ton of straw does not contain as 
much valuable plant-food as the ton of corn-fodder, nor the ton of 
corn-fodder as much as the ton of clover-hay." 

" Now then," said I, " instead of putting a ton of straw in one 
heap to rot, and a ton of corn-fodder in another heap, and a ton of 
clover in another heap, we feed the ton of straw to a cow, and the 
ton of corn-fodder to another cow, and the ton of clover to another 
cow, and save all the solid and liquid excrements, will the manure 
made from the ton of straw be worth as much as the manure made 
from the ton of corn-fodder or clover-hay?" 

" No," said Charley.—" Certainly not," said the Doctor. — " I am 
not so sure about it," said the'Deacon ; " I think you will get more 
manure from the corn-fodder than from the straw or clover-hay." 

" We are not talking about bulk," said the Doctor, " but value." 
" Suppose, Deacon," said he, " you were to shut up a lot of your 
Brahma hens, and feed them a ton of corn-meal, and should also 
feed a ton of corn-meal made into slops to a lot of pigs, and should 
save all the liquid and solid excrements from the pigs, and all the 
manure from the hens, which would be worth the most ? "— " The 
hen-manure, of course," said the Deacon, who has great faith in 
this kind of " guano," as he calls it. 

" And yet," said the Doctor, " you would probably not get more 
than half a ton of manure from the hens, while the liquid and 
solid excrements from the pigs, if the corn-meal was made into a 
thin slop, would weigh two or three tons." 



44 TALKS ON MANURES. 

" More, too," said the Deacon, " the way you feed your store 
pigs." 

" Very well ; and yet you say that the half ton of hen-manure 
made from a ton of corn is worth more than the two or three tons 
of pig-manure made from a ton of corn. You do not seem to 
think, after all, that mere bulk or weight adds anything to the 
value of the manure. Why then should you say that the manure 
from a ton of corn-fodder is worth more than from a ton of straw, 
because it is more bulky ? " 

" You, yourself," said the Deacon, " also say the manure from 
the ton of corn-fodder is worth more than from the ton of 
straw." — *' True," said I " but not because it is more bulky. It is 
worth more because the ton of corn-fodder contains a greater 
quantity of valuable plant-food than the ton of straw. The clover 
is still richer in this valuable plant-food, and the manure is much 
more valuable ; in fact, the manure from the ton of clover is worth 
as much as the manure from the ton of straw and the ton of corn- 
fodder together." 

" I would like to see you prove that," said the Deacon, " for if 
it is true, I will sell no more clover-hay. I can't get as much for 
clover-hay in the market as I can for rye-straw." 

" I will not attempt to prove it at present," said the Doctor ; 
" but the evidence is so strong and so conclusive that no rational 
man, who will study the subject, can fail to be thoroughly con- 
vinced of its truth." 

" The value of manure," said I, " does not depend on the quan- 
tity of water which it contains, or on the quantity of sand, or 
silica, or on the amount of woody fibre or carbonaceous matter. 
These things add little or nothing to its fertilizing value, except in 
rare cases ; and the sulphuric acid and lime are worth no more 
than the same quantity of sulphate of lime or gypsum, and the 
chlorine and soda are probably worth no more than so much com- 
mon salt. The real chemical value of the manure, other things 
being equal, is in proportion to the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and 
potash, that the manure contains. 

"And the quantity of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash 
found in the manure is determined, other things being equal, by 
the quantity of the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash contained 
in the food consumed by the animals making the manure." 



FOODS WHICH MAKE KICK MANURE. 



45 



chaptj:r XII. 

FOODS WHICH MAKE RICH MANURE. 



The amount of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, contained 
in different foods, has been accurately determined by many able 
and reliable chemists. 

The following table was prepared by Dr. J. B. Lawes, of Roth- 
amsted, England, and was first published in this country in the 
" Genesee Farmer," for May, 1860. Since then, it has been re- 
peatedly published in nearly all the leading agricultural journals 
of the world, and has given rise to much discussion. The follow- 
ing is the table, with some recent additions : 



Linseed cake 

Cotton-seed cake*. 

Rape-cake 

Linseed. 

Beans 

Peas 

Tares 

Lentils 

Malt-dust 

Locust beans 

Indian-meal 

Wheat 

Barley 

Malt 

Oats 

Fine pollard t 

Coarse pollard t 

Wheat-bran 

Clover-hay 

Meadow-hay 

Bean-straw 

Pea-straw 

Wheat-straw 

Barley-straw 

Oatstraw 

Mangel-wurzel 

Swedish turnips 

Common turnips .. 

Potatoes 

Carrots 

Parsnips 



PER CENT. 



1^ 



88.0 
89.0 
89.0 
90.0 
84.0 
84.5 
84.0 
88.0 
94.0 
85.0 
88.0 
85.0 
84.0 
95.0 
86.0 
86.0 
86.0 
86.0 
84.0 
84.0 
82.5 
82.0 
84.0 
85.0 
83.0 
12.5 
11.0 
8.0 
24.0 
13.5 
15.0 





Phosphoric 
acid reckon- 
ed as ])hos- 
phateoflime 


7.00 


4.92 


8.00 


7.00 


8.00 


5.75 


4.00 


3 38 


3.00 


2.20 


2.40 


1.84 


2.00 


1.63 


3.00 


1.89 


8.50 


5.23 


1.75 




1.30 


1.13 


1.70 


1-87 


2.20 


1.35 


2.60 


1.60 


2.85 


1.17 


5.60 


6.44 


6.20 


7.52 


6.60 


7.95 


7.50 


1.25 


6.00 


0.88 


5.55 


0.90 


5.95 


0.85 


5.00 


0.55 


4 50 


0.37 


5.50 


0.48 


1.00 


0.09 


.68 


0.13 


.68 


0.11 


1.00 


0.32 


.70 


0.13 


1.00 


0.42 



1.65 
3.12 
1.76 
1.37 
1.27 
0.96 
0.66 
0.96 
2.12 

6!35 
0.50 
0.55 
0.65 
0.50 
1.46 
1.49 
1.45 
1.30 
1.50 
1.11 
0.89 
0.65 
0.63 
0.93 
0.25 
0.18 
0.29 
0.43 
0.23 
0.36 



4.75 
6.50 
5.00 
3.80 
4.00 
3.40 
4.20 
4.30 
4.20 
1.25 
1.80 
1.80 
1.65 
1.70 
2.00 
2.60 
2.58 
2.55 
2.50 
1.50 
0.90 

o.eb 

0.50 
0.60 
0.25 
0.22 
0.18 
0.35 
0.20 
0.22 






19.72 
27.86 
21.01 
15.65 
15.75 
13.38 
16.75 
16.51 
18.21 
4.81 
6.65 
7.08 
6.32 
6.65 
7.70 
13.53 
14.36 
14.59 
9.64 
6.43 
3.87 
3.74 
2.68 
2.25 
2.90 
1.07 
91 
.86 
1.50 
.80 
1.14 



* The manure from a ton of undecorticated cotton-seed cake is worth S15.74; 
that from a ton of cotton-seed, after being ground and .sifted, is worth $13.25. 
The grinding and sifting, in Mr. Lawes' experiments, removed about 8 percent 
of husk and cotton. Cotton-seed, so treated, proved to be a very rich and 
economical food. t Middlings, Canielle. X Shipstuflf. 



46 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Of all vegetable substances used for food, it will be seen that 
decorticated cotton-seed cake is the richest in nitrogen, phos- 
phoric acid, and potash, and consequently makes the richest and 
most valuable manure. According to Mr. Lawes' estimate, the 
manure from a ton of decorticated cotton-seed cake is worth $27.86 
in gold. 

Rape-cake comes next. Twenty-five to thirty years ago, rape- 
cake, ground as fine as corn-meal, was used quite extensively on 
many of the light-land farms of England as a manure for turnips, 
and not uufrequently as a manure for wheat. Mr. Lawes used it 
for many years in his experiments on turnips and on wheat. 

Of late years, however, it has been fed to sheep and cattle. In 
other words, it has been used, not as formerly, for manure alone, 
but for food first, and manure afterwards. The oil and other car- 
bonaceous matter which the cake contains is of little value for 
manure, while it is of great value as food. The animals take out 
this carbonaceous matter, and leave nearly all the nitrogen, phos- 
phoric acid, and potash in the manure. Farmers who had found 
it profitable to use on wheat and turnips for manure alone, found 
it still more profitable to use it first for food, and then for manure 
afterwards. Mr. Lawes, it will be seen, estimates the manure pro- 
duced from the consumption of a ton of rape-cake at $21.01. 

Linseed-oil cake comes next. Pure linseed-cake is exceedingly 
valuable, both for food and manure. It is a favorite food with 
all cattle and sheep breeders and feeders. It has a wonderful 
efiect in improving the appearance of cattle and sheep. An Eng- 
lish farmer thinks he cannot get along without "cake" for his 
calves, lambs, cattle, and sheep. In this country, it is not so ex- 
tensively used, except by the breeders of improved stock. It is so 
popular in England that the price is fully up to its intrinsic value, 
and not uufrequently other foods, in proportion to the nutritive 
and m.anurial value, can be bought cheaper. This fact shows the 
value of a good reputation. Linseed-cake, however, is often adul- 
terated, and farmers need to be cautious who they deal with. 
When pure, it will be seen that the manure made by the consump- 
tion of a ton of linseed-cake is worth $19.73. 

Malt-dust stands next on the list. This article is known by dif- 
ferent names. In England, it is often called " malt-combs ;" here 
it is known as *' malt-spwwfe," or *' malt-roots.''^ In making barley 
into malt, the barley is soaked in water, and afterwards kept in a 
warm room until it germinates, and throws out sprouts and roots. 
It is then dried, and before the malt is used, these dried sprouts 
and roots are sifted out, and are sold for cattle-food. They weigh 



FOODS WHICH MAKE RICH MANURE. 47 

from 22 to 25 lbs. per bushel of 40 quarts. They are frequently 
mixed at the breweries with the " grains," and are sold to milkmen 
at the same price — from 12 to 15 cents per bushel. Where their 
value is not known, they can, doubtless, be sometimes obtained at 
a mere nominal price. Milkmen, I believe, prefer the " grains " to 
the malt-dust. The latter, however, is a good food for sheep. It 
has one advantage over brewer's " grains." The latter contain 76 
per cent of water, while the malt-dust contains only 6 per cent of 
water. We can afford, therefore, to transport malt-dust to a 
greater distance than the grains. We do not want to carry water 
many miles. There is another advantage : brewer's grains soon 
ferment, and become sour ; while the malt-dust, being dry, will 
keep for any length of time. It will be seen that Mr. Lawes esti- 
mates the value of the manure left from the consumption of a ton 
of malt-dust at $18.21. 

Tares or vetches, lentils, linseed or flaxseed, beans, wheat, bran, 
middlings, fine mill-feed, undecorticated cotton-seed cake, peas, 
and cotton-seed, stand next on the list. The value of these for 
manure ranging from $13.25 to $16.75 per ton. 

Then comes clover-hay. Mr. Lawes estimates the value of the 
manure from the consumption of a ton of clover-hay at $9.64. 
This is from early cut clover-hay. 

When clover is allowed to grow until it is nearly out of flower, 
the hay would not contain so much nitrogen, and would not be 
worth quite so much per ton for manure. When mixed with 
timothy or other grasses, or with weeds, it would not be so valu- 
able. The above estimate is for the average quality of good pure 
English clover-hay. Our best farmers raise clover equally as 
good ; but I have seen much clover-hay that certainly would not 
come up to this standard. Still, even our common clover-hay 
makes rich manure. In Wolff's Table, given in the appendix, it 
will be seen that clover-hay contains only 1.97 per cent of nitro- 
gen and 5.7 per cent of ash. Mr. Lawes' clover contains more 
nitrogen and ash. This means richer land and a less mature con- 
dition of the crop. 

The cereal grains, wheat, barley, oats, and Indian corn, stand 
next on the list, being worth from $6.32 to $7.70 per ton for 
manure. 

" Meadow-hay," which in the table is estimated as worth $6.43 
per ton for manure, is the hay from permanent meadows. It is a 
quite different article from the " English Meadow-hay " of New 
England. It is, in fact, the perfection of hay. The meadows arc fre- 
quently top-dressed with composted manure or artificial fertilizers, 



48 TALKS ON MANURES. 

and the hay is composed of a number of the best grasses, cut early 
and carefully cured. It will be noticed, however, that even this 
choice meadow-hay is not as valuable for manure as clover-hay. 

English bean-straw is estimated as worth $3.87 per ton for 
manure. The English " horse bean," which is the kind here 
alluded to, has a very stiflf, coarse long straw, and looks as though 
it was much inferior as fodder, to the straw of our ordinary white 
beans. See Wolff's table in the appendix. 

Pea-straw is estimated at $3. 74 per ton. When the peas are not al- 
lowed to grow until dead ripe, and when the straw is carefully cured, 
it makes capital food for sheep. Taking the grain and straw 
together, it will be seen that peas are an unusually valuable crop to 
grow for the purpose of making rich manure. 

The straw of oats, wheat, and barley, is worth from $3.25 to $2.90 
per ton. Barley straw being the poorest for manure, and oat straw 
the richest. 

Potatoes are worth $1.50 per ton, or nearly 5 cents a bushel for 
manure. 

The manurial value of roots varies from 80 cents a ton for 
carrots, to $1.07 for mangel-wurzel, and $1.14 for parsnips. 

I am very anxious that there should be no misapprehension as 
to the meaning of these figures. I am sure they are well worth 
the careful study of every intelligent farmer. Mr. Lawes has been 
engaged in making experiments for over thirty years. There is no 
man more competent to speak with authority on such a subject. 
The figures showing the money value of the manure made from 
the different foods, are based on the amount of nitrogen, phos- 
phoric acid, and potash, which they contain. Mr. Lawes has been 
buying and using artificial manures for many years, and is quite 
competent to form a correct conclusion as to the cheapest sources 
of obtaining nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. He has cer- 
tainly not overestimated their cost. They can not be bought at 
lower rates, either in England or America. But of course it does 
not foUow from this that these manures are worth to the farmer 
the price charged for them ; that is a matter depending on many 
conditions. All that can be said is, that if you are going to buy 
commercial manures, you will have to pay at least as much for the 
nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, as the price fixed upon by 
Mr. Lawes. And you should recollect that there are other in- 
gredients in the manure obtained from the food of animals, which 
are not estimated as of any value in the table. For instance, there 
is a large amount of carbonaceous matter in the manure of animals, 



FOODS WHICH MAKE BICH MANURE. 49 

which, for some crops, is not without value, but which is not here 
taken into account. 

Viewed from a farmer's stand-point, the table of money values 
must be taken only in a comparative sense. It is not claimed that 
the manure from a ton of wheat-straw is worth $2.68. This may, 
or may not, be the case. But if the manure from a ton of wheat- 
straw is worth $2.68, then the manure from a ton of pea-straw is 
worth $3.74, and the manure from a ton of corn-meal is worth 
$6.65, and the manure from a ton of clover-hay is worth $9.64, 
and the manure from a ton of wheat-bran is worth $14.59. If the 
manure from a ton of corn meal is not worth $6.65, then the 
manure from a ton of bran is not worth $14.59. If the manure 
from the ton of corn is worth more than $6.65, then the manure 
from a ton of bran is worth more than $14.59. There need be no 
doubt on this point. 

Settle in your own mind what the manure from a ton of any one 
of the foods mentioned is worth on your farm, and you can easily 
calculate what the manure is worth from all the others. If you 
say that the manure from a ton of wheat-straw is worth $1.34, then 
the manure from a ton of Indian corn is worth $3.33, and the 
manure from a ton of bran is worth $7.30, and the manure from a 
ton of clover-hay is worth $4.82. 

In this section, however, few good farmers are willing to sell 
straw, though tbey can get from $8.00 to $10.00 per ton for it. 
They think it must be consumed on the farm, or used for bedding, 
or their land will run down. I do not say they are wrong, but I 
do say, that if a ton of straw is worth $2.68 for manure alone, then 
a ton of clover-hay is worth $9.64 for manure alone. This may 
be accepted as a general truth, and one which a farmer can act 
upon. And so, too, in regard to the value of com-meal, bran, and 
all the other articles given in the table. 



There is another point of great importance which should be men- 
tioned in this connection. The nitrogen in the better class of 
foods is worth more for manure than the nitrogen in straw, corn- 
stalks, and other coarse fodder. Nearly all the nitrogen in grain, 
and other rich foods, is digested by the animals, and is voided in 
solution in the urine. In other words, the nitrogen in the manure 
is in an active and available condition. On the other hand, only 
about half the nitrogen in the coarse fodders and straw is digesti- 
ble. The other half passes off in a crude and comparatively un- 
available condition, in the solid excrement. In estimating the value 
of the manure from a ton of food, these facts should be remembered. 
3 



50 TALKS ON MANURES. 

I have said that if the manure from a ton of straw is worth $2.68, 
the manure from a ton of corn is worth $6. 65 ; but I will not reverse 
the proposition, and say that if the manure from a ton of corn is 
worth $6.65, the manure from a ton of straw^ is worth $3.68. The 
manure from the grain is nearly all in an available condition, while 
that from the straw is not. A pound of nitrogen in rich manure 
is worth more than a pound of nitrogen in poor manure. This is 
another reason why we should try to make rich manure. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
HORSE MANURE AND FARM- YARD MANURE. 

The manure from horses is generally considered richer and better 
than that from cows. This is not always the case, though it is 
probably so as a rule. There are three principal reasons for this. 
1st. The horse is usually fed more grain and hay than the cow. 
In other words, the food of the horse is usually richer in the val- 
uable elements of plant-food than the ordinary food of the cow. 
2d. The milk of the cow abstracts considerable nitrogen, phos- 
phoric acid, etc., from the food, and to this extent there is less of 
these valuable substances in the excrements. 3d. The excrements 
of the cow contain much more water than those of the horse. And 
consequently a ton of cow -dung, other things being equal, would 
not contain as much actual manure as a ton of horse-dung. 

Boussingauit, who is eminently trustworthy, gives us the follow- 
ing interesting facts : 

A horse consumed in 24 hours, 20 lbs. of hay, 6 lbs. of oats, and 
43 lbs. of water, and voided during the same period, 3 lbs. 7 ozs. 
of urine, and 38 lbs. 2 ozs. of solid excrements. 

The solid excrements contained 23^ lbs. of water, and the urine 
2 lbs. 6 ozs. of water. • 

According to this, a horse, eating 20 lbs. of hay, and 6 lbs. of oats, 
per day, voids in a year nearly seven tons of solid excrements, and 
1,255 lbs. of urine. 

It would seem that there must have been some mistake in col- 
lecting the urine, or what was probably the case, that some of it 
must have been absorbed by the dung ; for 3i pints of urine per 
day is certainly mucli less than is usually voided by a horse. 



HOBSE MANURE AND FARM-YARD MANURE. 51 

Stockard gives the amount of urine voided by a horse in a year 
at 3,000 lbs. ; a cow, 8,000 lbs. ; sheep, 380 lbs. ; pig, 1,200 lbs. 

Dr. Voelcker, at the Royal Agricultural College, at Cirencester, 
England, made some valuable investigations in regard to the com- 
position of farm-yard manure, and the changes which take place 
during fermentation. 

The manure was composed of horse, cow, and pig-dung, mixed 
with the straw used for bedding in the stalls, pig-pens, sheds, etc. 

On the 3d of November, 1854, a sample of what Dr. Voelcker 
calls " Fresh Long Dung," was taken from the " manure-pit " for 
analysis. It had lain in the pit or heap about 14 days. 

The following is the result of the analysis : 

FRESH FARM- YARD MANURE. 

HALF A TON, OR 1,000 LBS. 

Water 661.71bs. 

Organic matter - 382.4 " 

Ash 55.9 " 

1,000.0 lbs. 
Nitrogen 6.43 " 

" Before you go any farther," said the Deacon, '' let me under- 
stand what these figures mean ? Do you mean that a ton of 
manure contains only 12f lbs. of nitrogen, and 111 lbs. of ash, and 
that all the rest is carbonaceous matter and water, of little or no 
value " ? — " That is it precisely, Deacon," said I, " and further- 
more, a large part of the ash has very little fertilizing value, as 
will be seen from the following : 

DETAILED COMPOSITION OF THE ASH OF FBESH BABN-TAHD MANUBE. 

Soluble silica 21.59 

Insoluble sillcious matter (sand) 10.04 

Phosphate of lime 5.35 

Oxide of iron, alumina, with phosphate 8.47 

Containing phospheric acid 3.18 

Lime 21.31 

Magnesia 2.76 

Potash 12.04 

Soda 1.30 

Chloride of sodium 0.54 

Sulphuric acid 1.49 

Carbonic acid and loss 15.11 

100.00 
Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, arc the most valuable in- 
gredients in manure. It will be seen that a ton of fresh barn-yard 
manure, of probably good average quality, contains : 

Nitrog:en 121 lbs. 

Phosphoric acid 6i " 

Potash 13i " 



52 TALKS ON MANURES. 

I do not say that these are the only ingredients of any value in 
a ton of manure. Nearly all the other ingredients are indispen- 
sable to the growth of plants, and if we should use manures con- 
taining nothing but nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, the 
time would come when the crops would fail, from lack of a 
sufficient quantity of, perhaps, magnesia, or lime, sulphuric acid, or 
soluble silica, or iron. But it is not necessary to make provision 
for such a contingency. It would be a very exceptional case. 
Farmers who depend mainly on barn-yard manure, or on plowing 
under green crops for keeping up the fertility of the land, may 
safely calculate that the value of the manure is in proportion to 
the amount of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, it contains. 

We draw out a ton of fresh manure and spread it on the land, 
therefore, in order to furnish the growing crops with 12f lbs. of 
nitrogen, 6^ lbs. of phosphoric acid, and 13^ lbs. of potash. 
Less than 33 lbs. in all ! 

We cannot dispense with farm-yard manure. We can seldom 
buy nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, as cheaply as we can 
get them in home-made manures. But we should clearly under- 
stand the fact that we draw out 2,000 lbs. of matter in order to 
get 33 lbs. of these fertilizing ingredients. We should try to 
make richer manure. A ton of manure containing 60 lbs. of 
nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, costs no more to draw out 
and spread, than a ton containing only 30 lbs., and it would be 
worth nearly or quite double the money. 

How to make richer manure we will not discuss at this time. It 
is a question of food. But it is worth while to enquu*e if we can 
not take such manure as we have, and reduce its weight and bulk 
without losing any of its nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

FERMENTINa MANURE. 

Dr. VoBlcker placed 2,838 lbs. of fresh mixed manure in a heap 
Rov. 3, 1854, and the next spring, April 30, it weighed 2,026 lbs., 
a shrinkage in weight of 28.6 per cent. In other words 100 tons 
of such manure would be reduced to less than 7H tons. 

The heap was weighed again, August 23d, and contained 1,994 
lbs. It was again weighed Nov. 15, and contained 1,974 lbs. 



FERMENTING MANURE. 



53 



The following table shows the composition of the heap when 
first put up, and also at the three subsequent periods : 



TABLE SHOWING COMPOSITION OF THE WHOLE HEAP ; FRESH FARM-YARD MANtJRE 
(NO. I.) EXPOSED— EXPRESSED IN LBS. 



When put 
vp Nov. 
3, 1854. 



April 30, 
1855. 



Weiiiht of manure in lbs 

Amt. of water in the mannre 

Amt. of dry matter in the manure 

Consisting of — 

Soluble organic matter ( 

SoluDle mineral matter J 

Insoluble organic matter J 

Insoluble mineral matter [_ 

Containing nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Containing nitrogen 

Equal lo ammonia 

Total amount of nitrogen in manure. 
Equal to ammonia . 

The manure contains ammonia in 
free state .... 

The manure contains ammonia in 
form of salts, easily decomposed by 
quicklime 

Total amount of organic matters... 

Total amount of mineral matters 



2,838 

1,877.9 
960.1 

70.38 
43.71 
731.07 
114.94 



4 22 

5'l2 
14.01 
17.02 



18.23 
22.14 



.96 



2.49 
801.45 
158.15 



1.336. 
689.1 



689.9 



.15 



1.71 
476.25 
213.65 



Aug. 23, 
1855. 



1,505.3 

488.7 

58.83 

39.16 

243.22 

147.49 

488.7 

3.76 
4.56 
9.38 
11.40 



13.14 
15.96 



.20 



.75 
302.05 
186.65 



Nov. 15, 
1855. 



1,974 

1,466 5 
507.5 

54.04 
36.89 
214.92 
201.65 



507.5 

3.65 
4.36 
9.38 
11.39 



13.03 
15.75 



.11 



268.96 
238.54 



" It will be remarked," says Dr. Vcelcker, " that in the first ex- 
perimental period, the fermentation of the dung, as might have 
been expected, proceeded most rapidly, but that, notwithstanding, 
very little nitrogen was dissipated in the form of volatile ammonia ; 
and that on the whole, the loss which the manure sustained was 
inconsiderable when compared with the enormous waste to which 
it was subject in the subsequent warmer and more rainy seasons of 
the year. Thus we find at the end of April very nearly the same 
amount of nitrogen which is contained in the fresh ; whereas, at 
the end of August, 27.9 per cent of the total nitrogen, or nearly 
one-third of the nitrogen in the manure, has been wasted in one 
way or the other. 

" It is worthy of observation," continues Dr. Voelcker, " that, 
during a well-regulated fermentation of dung, the loss in 
intrinsically valuable constituents is inconsiderable, and that in 
such a preparatory process the efficacy of tJie manure becomes greatly 
enhanced. For certain purposes fresh dung can never take the 



54 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



place of well-rotted dua^. * * The farmer will, therefore, al- 
ways be compelled to submit a portion of home-made dung to 
fermentation, and will find satisfaction in knowing that this pro- 
cess, when well regulated, is not attended with any serious de- 
preciation of the value of the manure. In the foregoing analyses 
he will find the direct proof that as long as heavy showers of rain 
are excluded from manure-heaps, or the manure is kept in water- 
proof pits, the most valuable fertilizing matters are preserved." 

This experiment of Dr. Voelcker proves conclusively that manure 
can be kept in a rapid state of fermentation for six months during 
winter, with little loss of nitrogen or other fertilizing matter. 

During fermentation a portion of the insoluble matter of the 
dung becomes soluble, and if the manure is then kept in a heap 
exposed to rain, there is a great loss of fertilizing matter. This is 
precisely what we should expect. We ferment manure to make it 
more readily available as plant-food, and when we have attained 
our object, the manure should be applied to the land. We keep 
winter apples in the cellar until they get ripe. As soon as they are 
ripe, they should be eaten, or they will rapidly decay. This is well 
understood. And it should be equally well known that manure, 
after it has been fermenting in a heap for six months, cannot safely 
be kept for another six months exposed to the weather. 

The following table shows the composition of 100 lbs. of the 
farm-yard manure, at different periods of the year : 

COMPOSITION OP 100 LBS. OF FRESH FAUM-YAUD MANURE (NO. I.) EXPOSED IN 
NATURAL STATE, AT DIFFERENT PERIODS OP THE YEAB. 



Whenptd 

up, Nov. 
3, 1854. 



Feb. 14, 
1855. 



Aj}7'. 3C 
1855. 



Aug. 23, 
1855. 



Nov. 15, 
1855. 



Water 

Soluble orojanic matter. . . 
Soiul)lc inorganic matter. 
Insoluble organic matter. 
Insoluble mineral matter. 



Containing nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Containing nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Total amount of nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Ammonia in a free state 

Ammonia in form of salts easily de- 
composed by quicklime 

Total amt. of onranic matter 

Total amt. of miner.ii substances.. 



69.83 
3.86 
2.97 

18.44 
4.90 



100.00 
.27 
.32 
.47 
.57 
.74 
.89 
.019 

.064 

22.30 

7.87 



65.95 
4.27 

2.86 
19.23 
7.69 



75.49 
2.95 
1.97 

12.20 
7.39 



74.29 

2.74 

1.87 

10.89 

10.21 



100.00 
.30 
.36 
.59 
.71 
.89 
1.U7 
.008 

.085 
23.50 
10.55 



100.00 
.19 
.23 
.47 
.62 
.66 
.85 
.010 



15.15 
9.36 



100.00 
.18 
.21 
.47 
.57 
.65 
.78 
.006 

.041 
13.63 
12.08 



It will be seen that two-thirds of the fresh manure is water. 
After fermenting in an exposed heap for six months, it still con- 



FERMENTING MANURE. 



55 



tains about the same percentage of water. When kept m the heap 
until August, the percentage of water is much greater. Of four 
tons of such manure, three tons are water. 

Of Nitrogen, the most valuable ingredient of the manure, the 
fresh dung, contained 0.64 per cent ; after fermenting six months, it 
contained 0.89 per cent. Six months later, it contained 0.65 per 
cent, or about the same amount as the fresh manure. * 

Of mineral matter, or ash, this fresh farm-yard manure con- 
tained 5.59 per cent; of which 1.54 was soluble in water, and 4.05 
insoluble. After fermenting in the heap for six months, the ma- 
nure contained 10.55 per cent of ash, of which 2.86 was soluble, 
and 7.69 insoluble. Six months later, the soluble ash had de- 
creased to 1.97 per cent. 

The following table shows the composition of the manure, at 
different periods, in the dry state. In other words, supposing all 
the water to be removed from the manure, its composition would 
be as follows : 

COMPOSITION OP rRESH FARM- YARD MANURE (NO. I.) EXPOSED. CALCTILATED DRY. 



Soluble organic matter. . . 
Soluble inorganic matter. 
Insoluble organic matter. 
Insoluble mineral matter. 



Containing nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Containing nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Total amount of nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Ammonia in free state 

Ammonia in form of salts easily decom- 
posed by quicklime 

Total amount of organic matter 

Total amount of mineral substances . . 



Whenput 
up, Nov. 
3, 1854. 



7.33 
4.55 
76.15 
11.97 

100.00 

.44 

.53 

1.46 

1.77 

1.00 

2.30 

.10 

.26 
83.48 
16.52 



Feb. 


AprU 


Aug. 


14, 


30, 


23, 


1855. 


1855. 


1855. 


12.79 


12.54 


12.04 


9.84 


8.39 


8.03 


61.12 


56.49 


49.77 


16.25 


22.58 


30.16 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 

1 


.91 


.88 


.77 ! 


1.10 


1.06 


.93 ! 


1.55 


1.75 


1.92 i 


1.88 


2.12 


2.33 


2.4G 


2.(i3 


2.69 1 


2.98 


3.18 


3.26 ! 


.062 


.023 


.041 


.212 


.249 


.154 


73.91 


69.03 


61.81 


26.09 


30.97 


38.19 



Nov.' 

15, 
1855. 

10.65 

7.27 

42.35 



100.00 

.72 

.88 
1.85 
2.24 
2.57 
3.12 



.159 
53.00 
47.00 



" A comparison of these different analyses," says Dr. Ycelcker, 
" points out clearly the changes which fresh farm-yard manure un- 
dergoes on keeping in a heap, exposed to the influence of the 
weather during a period of twelve months and twelve days. 

" 1. It will be perceived that the proportion of organic matter 
steadily diminishes from month to month, until the original per- 
centage of organic matter in the dry manure, amounting to 83.48 
per cent, becomes reduced to 53 per cent. 

" 2. On the other hand, the total percentage of mineral matter 
rises as steadily as that of the organic matter falls. 



56 TALKS ON MANUBES. 

*' 3. It will be seen tliat the loss in organic matter affects the 
percentage of insoluble organic matters more than the percentage 
of soluble organic substances. 

** 4. The percentage of soluble organic matters, indeed, increased 
considerably during the first experimental period ; it rose, namely, 
from 7.33 per cent to 12.79 per cent. Examined again on the 30th 
of April, very nearly the same percentage of soluble organic matter, 
as on February the 14th, was found. The August analysis shows 
but a slight decrease in the percentage of soluble organic matters, 
while there is a decrease of 2 per cent of soluble organic matters 
when the November analysis is compared with the February an- 
alysis. 

" 5. The soluble mineral matters in this manure rise or fall in 
the different experimental periods in the same order as the soluble 
organic matters. Thus, in February, 9.84 per cent of soluble 
mineral matters were found, whilst the manure contained only 4.55 
per cent, when put up into a heap in November, 1854. Gradually, 
however, the proportion of soluble mineral matters again dimin- 
ished, and became reduced to 7.27 per cent, on the examination of 
the manure in November, 1855. 

" 6. A similar regularity will be observed in the percentage of 
nitrogen contained in the soluble organic matters. 

" In the insoluble organic matters, the percentage of nitrogen 
regularly increased from November, 1854, up to the 23d of Au- 
gust, notwithstanding the rapid diminution of the percentage of 
insoluble organic matter. For the last experimental period, the 
percentage of nitrogen in the insoluble matter is nearly the same 
as on August 23d. 

" 8. With respect to the total percentage of nitrogen in the fresh 
manure, examined at different periods of the year, it will be seen 
that the February manure contains about one-half per cent more 
of nitrogen than the manure in a perfectly fresh state. On the 
30th of April, the percentage of nitrogen again slightly mcreased; 
on August 23d, it remained stationary, and had sunk but very lit- 
tle when last examined on the 15th of November, 1855. 

" This series of analyses thus shows that fresh farm-yard manure 
rapidly becomes more soluble in water, but that this desirable 
change is realized at the expense of a large proportion of organic 
matters. It likewise proves, in an unmistakable manner, that 
there is no advantage in keeping farm-yard manure for too long a 
period ; for, after February, neither the percentage of soluble or- 
ganic, nor that of soluble mineral matter, has become greater. 



FERMENTING MANURE. 



57 



and the percentage of nitrogen in the manure of April and August 
is only a very little higher than in February." 

''Before you go auy further," said the Deacon, " answer me 
this question : Suppose I take five tons of farm-yard manure, and put 
it in a heap on the 3d of November, tell me, 1st, what that heap 
will contain when first made; 2d, what the heap will contain 
April 30th ; and, 3d, what the heap will contain August 33d." 

Here is the table : 



Total weiorht of manure in heap. 
Water in the heap of manure . . 

Total organic matter 

Total inorganic matter 

Total nitrogen in heap 

Total soluble organic matter 

Total insoluble organic matter. . 

Sohible mineral matter 

Insoluble mineral matter 

Nitrogen in soluble matter 

Nitrogen in insoluble matter 



CONTENTS OF A HEAP OF MANUBE AT DIFFERENT PERIODS, EXPOSED TO BAIK, ETC. 



Nod. 15. 

6.954 

5,167 

947 

840 
46.0 

190 

757 

130 

710 
12.9 
33.1 



When put 






up, ^ov. 
3. 


April 30. 


Aug. 23. 


10,000 


7,138 


7,025 


6,617 


4,707 


5.304 


2,824 


1,678 


1,0;J4 


559 


753 


657 


64.3 


63.9 


46.3 


248 


305 


207 


2,576 


1,373 


857 


154 


204 


138 


405 


549 


519 


14.9 


21.4 


13.2 


49.4 


42.5 


33.1 



The Deacon put on his spectacles and studied the above table 
carefully for some time. " That tells the whole story," said he, 
*' you put five tons of fresh manure in a heap, it ferments and gets 
warm, and nearly one ton of water is driven off by the heat." 

" Yes," said the Doctor, "you see that over half a ton (1,146 lbs.) 
of dry organic matter has been slowly burnt up in the heap ; giv- 
ing out as much heat as half a ton of coal burnt in a stove. But 
this is not all. The manure is cooked, and steamed, and softened 
by the process. The organic matter burnt up is of no value. 
There is little or no loss of nitrogen. The heap contained 64.3 lbs. 
of nitrogen when put up, and 63.9 lbs. after fermenting six months. 
And it is evident that the manure is in a much more active and 
available condition than if it had been applied to the land in the 
fresh state. There was 14.9 lbs. of nitrogen in a soluble condition 
in the fresh manure, and 21.4 lbs. in the fermented manure. And 
what is equally important, you will notice that there is 154 lbs. of 
soluble ash in the heap of fresh manure, and 204 lbs. in the heap 
of fermented manure. In other words, 50 lbs. of the insoluble 
mineral matter had, by the fermentation of the manure, been ren- 
dered soluble, and consequently immediately available as plant- 
food. This is a very important fact." 

The Doctor is right. There is clearly a great advantage in fer- 
menting manure, provided it is done in such a manner as to prC' 



58 TALKS ON MANURES. 

vent loss. We have not only less manure to draw out and spread, 
but the plant-food which it contains, is more soluble and active. 
The table we have given shows that there is little or no loss of 
valuable constituents, even when manure is fermented in the open 
air and exposed to ordinary rain and snows during an English 
winter. But it also shows that when the manure has been fer- 
mented for six months, and is then turned and left exposed to the 
rain of spring and summer, the loss is very considerable. 



The five tons (10,000 lbs.,) of fresh manure placed in a heap on 
the 8d of November, are reduced to 7,138 lbs. by the 30th of April. 
Of this 4,707 lbs. is water. By the 23d of August, the heap is re- 
duced to 7,025 lbs., of which 5,304 lbs. is water. There is nearly 
600 lbs. more water in the heap in August than in April. 

Of total nitrogen in the heap, there is 64.3 lbs. in the fresh 
manure, 63. 9 lbs. in April, and only 46.3 lbs. in August. This is a 
great loss, and there is no compensating gain. 

We have seen that, when five tons of manure is fermented for six 
months, in winter, the nitrogen in the soluble organic matter is 
increased from 14.9 lbs. to 21.4 lbs. This is a decided advantage. 
But when the manure is kept for another six months, this soluble 
nitrogen is decreased from 21.4 lbs. to 13.2 lbs. We lose over 8 
lbs. of the most active and available nitrogen. 

And the same remarks will apply to the valuable soluble mineral 
matter. In the five tons of fresh manure there is 154 lbs. of soluble 
mineral matter. B}'" fermenting the heap six months, we get 204 
lbs., but by keeping the manure six months longer, the soluble 
mineral matter is reduced to 138 lbs. We lose 66 lbs. of valu- 
able soluble mineral matter. 

By fermenting manure for six months in winter, we greatly im- 
prove its condition ; by keeping it six months longer, we lose 
largely of the very best and most active parts of the manure. 



KEEPING MANUBE UNDER COVBB. 



59 



CHAPTER XV 



KEEPING MANURE UNDER COVER 

Dr. Voelcker, at the same time he made the experiments alluded 
to in the preceding chapter, placed another heap of manure under 
cover, in a shed. It was the same kind of manure, and was treated 
precisely as the other— the only difference being that one heap was 
exposed to the rain, and the other not. The following table gives 
the results of the weighings of the heap at different times, and also 
the percentage of loss : 

MANURE FERMENTED UNDER COVER IN SHED. 

TABLE BHOWINQ THE ACTUAL WEIGHINGS, AND PERCENTAGE OF LOSS IN WEIGHT, 

OF EXPERIMENTAL HEAP (NO. H.) FRESH FARM-YARD MANURE UNDER 

SHED, AT DIFFERENT PERIODS OF THE TEAR. 



Weight 

of 
Man lire 
in Lbs. 



Loss in 

original 

weiqld 

in Lbs. 



PercenK 
age of 
Loss. 



Put up on the 3d of November, 1854 3,258 

Weiffhed on the 30th of April, 1855, or after a lapse 

of 6 months 1,613 1,645 50.4 

Weighed on the 23d of August, 1855, or after a lapse 

of 9 months and 20 days 1,297 1,961 60.0 

Weighed on the 151h of November, 1855, or after a 

lapseof 12 months and 12 days 1,235 2,023 62.1 



It will be seen that 100 tons of manure, kept in a heap under 
cover for six months, would be reduced to 49.6-10 tons. Whereas, 
when the same manure was fermented for the same length of time 
in the open aii; the 100 tons was reduced to only 71.4-10 tons. 
The difference is due principally lo the fact that the heap exposed 
contained more water, derived from rain and snow, than the heap 
kept under cover. This, of course, is what we should expect 
Let us look at the results of Dr. Vcelcker's analyses : 



60 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



TABLB SHOWING THE COMPOSITION OF EXPERIMENTAL. HEAP (nO. II.) TRBSH FABM* 

TABD MANURE UNDER SHED, IN NATURAL, STATE AT DLETERENT 

PERIODS OP THE TEAR. 



WhenvuAp^j^^ 14, 

up, NOV.\ loxK 

3:iS54. ^^^^• 



Apr. 30, 
1855. 



Auq. 23, 
1855. 



Nov. 15, 
1855. 



Water 

♦Soluble organic matter 

Soluble inorganic matter 

tlnsoluble organic matter 

Insoluble mineral matter 

♦Containing nitrogen , 

Equal to ammonia 

tContaining nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Total amount of nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia . . . 

Ammonia in free state 

Ammonia in form of salts easily de 

composed bj' quicklime 

Total amount of organic matter 

Total amount of mineral substance. 



66.17 


67.32 


56.89 


43.43 


2.4S 


2.63 


4.63 


4.13 


1.54 


2.12 


3.38 


3.05 


25 76 


20.46 


25.43 


26.01 


4.05 


7.47 


9.67 


23.38 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


.149 


.17 


.27 


.26 


.181 


.20 


.32 


.31 


.494 


.58 


.92 


1.01 


.599 


.70 


1.11 


1.23 


jm 


.75 


1.19 


1.27 


.780 


.90 


1.43 


1.54 


.034 


.022 


.055 


.015 


.088 


.054 


.101 


.103 


28.24 


23.09 


30.06 


30.14 


5.59 


9.59 


13.05 


26.43 



41.66 

5.37 

4.43 

27.69 

20.85 

100.00 

.42 
.51 
1.09 
1.31 
1.51 
].82 
.019 

.146 
33.06 

25.23 



TABLE SHOWING THE COMPOSITION OP EXPERIMENTAL HEAP (NO. II.) FRESH FARM- 

TARD MANURE UNDER SHED, CALCULATED DRY, AT DIFFERENT 

PERIODS OF THE TEAR. 



♦Soluble organic matter. . 
Soluble inorganic matter., 
tinsoluble organic matter. 
Insoluble mineral matter. . 



When init 
up, Nov. 
3, 1854. 



♦Containing nitrogen . 

Equal to ammonia 

tContaining nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Total amount of nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Ammonia in free state 

Ammonia in form of salts, easily de 

composed by quicklime 

Total amount of organic matter 

Totalamountof mineral substance , 



4.55 
76.15 
11.97 



100.00 



Feb. 14, 
1855. 



8.04 
6.48 
62.60 

22.88 



Apr. 30, 
1855. 



10.74 
7.84 
58.99 
22.43 



.44 


.53 


.53 


.60 


1.46 


1.77 


1.77 


2.14 


1.90 


2.30 


2.30 


2.80 


.10 


.007 


.26 


.165 


83.48 


70.64 


16.52 


29.36 



100.00 I 100.00 



.63 
.70 
2.14 
2.59 
2.77 
3.35 
.127 



69.73 
30 27 



Avg. 2 
1855. 



5.39 
45.97 
41.34 



100.00 



.56 
1.78 
2.16 
2.24 
2.72 

.026 

.182 
53.27 
46.73 



Nov. 15, 
1855. 



9.20 

7.59 

47.46 

35.75 



100.00 

.72 
.88 
1.88 
2 20 
2.60 
3.08 
.032 

.250 
56.66 
43.34 



The above analyses are of value to those who buy fresh and fer- 
mented manure. They can form some idea of what they are get- 
ting. If they buy a ton of fresh manure in November, they get 
12f lbs. of nitrogen, and 30| lbs. of soluble mineral matter. If 



KEEPING MANURE UNDER COVER. 



61 



they buy a ton of the same manure that has been kept under cover 
until February, they get, nitrogen, 15 lbs. ; soluble minerals, 42^ 
lbs. In April, tiiey get, nitrogen, 23| lbs. ; soluble minerals, 67^ 
lbs. In August, they get, nitrogen, 2oi lbs. ; soluble minerals, 61 
lbs. In November, when the manure is over one year old, they 
get, in a ton, nitrogen, 30i lbs. ; soluble minerals, 88^ lbs. 

When manure has not been exposed, it is clear that a purchaser 
can afford to pay considerably more for a ton of rotted manure 
than for a ton of fresh manure. But waiving this point for the 
present, let us see how the matter stands with the farmer who 
makes and uses the manure. What does he gain by keeping and 
fermenting the manure under cover ? 

The following table shows the weight and composition of the 
entire heap of manure, kept under cover, at different times : 



TABLE SHOWING C 3MPOSITIOX O^' ENTIRE EXPERIMENTAL HEAP (NO. II.) FRESH 
FAR3I-TAKD aiANUBE, TTNDER SHED. 



I'^rjC' April so: An,.^, 
\ifliu!-\ 1855. I 1855. 



Weight of manure 

Amount of water in the manure 

Amount of dry matter 

♦Consisting of soluble organic matter. . . 

Soluble mineral matter 

tlnsoluble organic matter 

Insoluble mineral matter ..'. 

*Containing nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

tContaining nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia ... 

Total amount of nitrogen in manure 

Equal to ammonia 

The manure contains ammonia in free 
state 

The manure contains ammonia in form 
of salts, easily decomposed by quick- 
lime 

Total amount of organic matter 

Total amount of mineral matter 



Nov. 15, 

1855. 



1 fts. 
3.258. 


i Rs. 
1,613. 


2,153. 

1,102. 

80.77 

50.14 

83^.17 

131.92 


917.6 
695.4 
74.68 
54.51 
410.24 
155.97 


1,103. 


695.4 


4.P5 
5.83 
16.08 
19.52 
20.r3 
25.40 


4.38 
5.33 

14.88 
17.46 
19.26 
22.79 


1.10 


.88 


2 86 
919.94 

182.06 


1.62 

481.92 
210.48 



S)8. 

1,297. 



B)s. 
1,2S5. 



563.2 

733.8 
53.56 
39.55 

337.33 

303.3 r 

733.8 

3.46 

4.29 
13.08 
15.88 
16.54 
20.03 

.19 1 



1.33 

390.88 
342.92 



514.5 

720.5 

66.28 

54.68 

ail .97 

257.57 

720.5 

5.25 
6.37 
13.54 
16.44 
18.79 
22.81 



1.80 
408.25 
312.35 



This is the table, as given by Dr. Yoelcker. For the sake of 
comparison, we will figure out what the changes would be in a 
heap of five tons (10,000 lbs.) of manure, when fermented under 
cover, precisely in the same way as we did with the heap fer- 
mented in the open air, exposed to the rain. The following is the 
table : 



62 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



CONTENTS OP A HEAP OF MANURE AT DIFFERENT PERIODS. 

COVER. 



FERMENTED UNDBB 





When put 
up, Nov.S. 


April 30. 


Aug. 23. 


Nov. 15. 


Total weight of manure in heap 

Water in the heap of manure 

Total organic matter 

Total inorganic matter 

Total nitrogen in heap 


as. 

10,000 
6.617 
2.824 
559 
64.3 
248 
2,576 
154 
405 
14.9 
49.4 
3.383 


©s. 

4,960 

2,822 

1,490 

646 

59 

2;j0 

1,260 

107 

479 

13.4 

45.6 

2,038 


tts. 
4,000 
1.737 
1,205 
1,057 
50.8 
165 
1,040 
122 
935 
10.4 
40.4 
2,263 


lbs. 
3,790 
1,579 . 
1,253 

958 
57.2 

203 5 


Total soluble organic matter 


Insoluble organic matter 


1,049 
168 
790 


Soluble mineral matter 

Insoluble mineral matter 


Nitrogen in soluble matter 


15.9 


Nitrogen in insoluble matter 


41 3 


Total dry matter in heap 


2,211 



It will be seen that the heap of manure kept under cover con- 
tained, on the 30th of April, less soluble organic matter, less soluble 
mineral matter, less soluble nitrogenous matter, and less total ni- 
trogen than the heap of manure exposed to the weather. This is 
precisely what I should have expected. The heap of manure in 
the shed probably fermented more rapidly than the he.ip out of 
doors, and there was not water enough in the manure to retain 
the carbonate of ammonia, or to favor the production o^ organic 
acids. The heap was too dry. If it could have received enough of 
the liquid from the stables to have kept it moderately moist, the 
result would have been very different. 

"We will postpone further consideration of this point at oresent, 
and look at the results of another of Dr. Voelcker's interesting 
experiments. 

Dr. Voelcker wished to ascertain the effect of three common 
methods of managing manure: 

1st. Keeping it in a heap in the open air in the barn-yard, or 
field. 

2d. Keeping it in a heap under cover in a shed. 

3d. Keeping it spread out over the barn-yard. 

" You say these are common methods of managing mannre," 
remarked the Deacon, " but I never knew any one in this country 
take the trouble to spread manure over the yard." 

" Perhaps not," I replied, " but you have known a good many 
farmers who adopt this very method of keeping their manure. 
They do not spread it — ^but they let it lie spread out over the 
yards, just wherever it happens to be." 

Let us see what the effect of this treatment is on the composi- 
tion and value of the manure. 

We have examined the effect of keeping manure in a heap in 



KEEPING MANURE UNDER COVER. 



63 



the open air, and also of keeping it in a heap under cover. Now 
let us see how these methods compare with the practice of leav- 
ing it exposed to the rains, spread out in the yard. 

On the 3rd of November, 1854, Dr. Voelcker weighed out 1,653 
lbs. of manure similar to that used in the preceding experiments, 
and spread it out in the yard. It was weighed April 30, and again 
August 23, and November 15. 

The following table gives the actual weight of the manure at 
the different periods, also the actual amount of the water, organic 
matter, ash, nitrogen, etc. : 

TABLE SHOWING TBTE WTEIGHT AND COMPOSITION 01" ENTIRE MASS OF EXPERI- 
MENTAL MANDPvE (no. ni.), FRESH FARM-TAKD MANURE, SPREAD IN OPEN 
TARD AT DIFFERENT PERIODS OF THE TEAR. IN NATURAL STATE. 



up^ Nov. 
3, 1854. 



Weight of manure . 



Amount of water in the manure 

Amount of dry matter 

♦Consistinoj of soluble organic matter. 

Soluble mineral matter 

tlnsoluble organic matter 

Insoluble mineral matter 



♦Containing nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia , 

tContaining nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia , . 

Total amount of nitrogen in manure. . . . 

Equal to ammonia 

The manure contains ammonia in free 
state 

The manure contains ammonia in form 
of salts, easily decomposed by quick- 
lime 

Total amount of organic matter 1 466!64 

Total amount of mineral matter ' 92.' ,36 




559.00 



3.28 
3.93 
6.21 
7.54 
9.49 
11.52 

.55 



1.45 



\April 30, 


Aug. 23, 


Nov. 15, 


1855. 


1855. 


1855. 


fl)s. 


B)s. 


B)8. 


1,429. 


1,012. 


950. 


1,143. 


709.3 


622.8 


285.5 


302.7 1327.2 


16..55 


4.96 


3.95 


14.41 


6.47 


5.52 


163.79 


106.81 


94.45 


90.75 


184.46 


223.28 


285.50 


302.70 


327.20 


1.19 


.60 


.32 


1.44 


.73 


.39 


6.. 51 


3.54 


3.56 


7.90 


4.29 


4.25 


7.70 


4.14 


3.88 


9.34 


5.02 


4.64 


.4 


.13 


.0055 


.62 


.55 


.28 


1»0.34 


111.77 


98.40 


105.16 


190.93 


228.80 



" One moment," said the Deacon. " These tables are a little 
confusing. The table you have just given shows the actual weight 
of the manure in the heap, and what it contained at different 
periods."— "Yes," said I, "and the table following shows what 
100 lbs, of this manure, spread out in the yard, contained at the 
different dates mentioned. It shows how greatly manure deterio- 
rates by being exposed to rain, spread out on the surface of the 
yard. The table merits careful study." 



64 



TALKS ON MANUKES. 



TABLE SHOWING COMPOSITION OP EXPERIMENTAL HEAP (NO. III.), PRESH FARM- 

TARD MANURE, SPREAD IN OPEN YARD, AT DIFPERENT PERIODS 

OP THE YEAR. IN NATURAL STATE. 



Water 

*Soluble organic matter 

Soluble inorganic matter 

tinsoluble organic matter 

Insoluble mineral matter 

♦Containing nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

tContaining nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Total amount of nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Ammonia in free state 

Ammonia in form of salts, easily decom 

posed by quicklime 

Total amount of organic matter 

Total amount of mineral substance 



April 30, 


Aug. 23, 


JVcv. 15, 


1855. 


1855. 


1855. 


80.02 


70.09 


65.56 


1.16 


.49 


.42 


1.01 


.64 


.57 


11.46 


10.56 


9.94 


6.35 


18.22 


23.51 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


.08 


.00 


.03 


.09 


.07 


.036 


.45 


.35 


.36 


.54 


.42 


.46 


.5S 


.41 


.39 


.63 


.49 


.406 


.010 


.012 


.0006 


.045 


.051 


.030 


12.62 


11.05 


10.36 


7.36 


18.86 


24.08 



The following table shows the composition of the manure, cal- 
culated dry : 

fABLE SHOWING COMPOSITION OP EXPERIMENTAL HEAP {NO. III.), FRESH FARM- 
YARD MANURE, SPREAD IN OPEN YARD, AT DIFFERENT PERIODS 
OF THE YEAR. CALCULATED DRY. 



♦Soluble organic matter 

Soluble inorganic matter 

tlnsoluble organic matter 

Insoluble mineral matter 

♦Containing nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

tContaining nitrogen , 

Equal to ammonia 

Total amount of nitrogen 

Equal to ammonia 

Ammonia in free state 

Ammonia in form of salts, easily decom 

posed by quicklime 

Total amount of organic matter 

Total amount of mineral substance 



When put 
up, Nov. 
3, 1854. 


April 30, 


Aug. 23, 


Nov. 15, 


1855. 


1855. 


1855. 


7.33 


5.80 


1.64 


1.21 


4.55 


5.05 


2.14 


1.69 


76.15 


57.37 


35.30 


20.86 


11.97 


31.78 


60.92 


68.24 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


.44 


.42 


.£0 


.10 


.53 


.51 


.24 


.12 


1.46 


2.28 


1.17 


1.09 


1.77 


2.76 


1.41 


1.32 


1.90 


2.70 


1.37 


1.19 


2.30 


3.27 


1.05 


1.44 


.10 


.05 


.040 


.0017 


.26 


.225 


.171 


.087 


83.48 


63.17 


36.94 


30.07 


16.52 


36.83 


63.06 


69.93 



I have made out the following table, showing what would be 
the changes in a heap of 5 tons (10,000 lbs.) of manure, spread out 
in the yard, so that we can readily see the effect of this method of 



KEEPING MANURE UNDER COVER. 



65 



management as compared with the other two methods of keeping 
the manure in compact heaps, one exposed, the other under cover. 
The following is the table : 

CONTENTS OP THE MASS OF MANURE, SPREAD OUT IN FARM- YARD, AND EXPOSED 
TO RAIN, ETC. 



Total weight of manure 

Water in the manure 

Total organic matter 

Total inorganic matter 

Total nitrogen in manure 

Total soluble organic matter 

Insoluble orsranic matter 

Soluble mineral matter 

Insoluble mineral matter 

Nitrogen in soluble matter. . 
Nitrogen in insoluble matter 



out, J\ov. 3. 



Rs. 
10,000 
6,617 
2,824 
559 
64.3 
248 
2,576 
154 
405 
14.9 
49.4 



AprU 30. 


Aug 23. 


Mv. 15. 


B)s. 


B>s. 


Sbs. 


8,650 


6,130 


5,750 


6,922 


4,297 


3,771 


1,092 


677 


595 


636 


1,155 


1,384 


45.9 


25 


22.4 


100 


30 


U 


992 


647 


571 


87 


39 


33 


549 


1,116 


1,351 


6.9 


3.6 


1.7 


39 


21.4 


20.7 



It is not necessary to make many remarks on this table. The 
facts speak for themselves. It will be seen that there is consid- 
erable loss even by letting the manure lie spread out until spring ; 
but, serious as this loss is, it is small compared to the loss sus- 
tained by allowing the manure to lie exposed in the yard during 
the summer. 

In the five tons of fresh manure, we have, November 3, 64.3 
lbs. of nitrogen ; April 30, we have 46 lbs. ; August 23, only 25 
lbs. This is a great loss of the most valuable constituent of the 
manure. Of soluble mineral matter, the next most valuable ingre- 
dient, we have in the five tons of fresh manure, November 3, 154 
lbs. ; April 30, 87 lbs. ; and August 23, only 39 lbs. Of soluble 
nitrogen, the most active and valuable part of the manure, we 
have, November 3, nearly 15 lbs. ; April 30, not quite 7 lbs. ; 
August 23, 3^ lbs. ; and November 15, not quite If lbs. 



Dr. Yoelcker made still another experiment. He took 1,613 
lbs. of well-rotted dung (mixed manure from horses, cows, and 
pigs,) and kept it in a heap, exposed to the weather, from Decem- 
ber 5 to April 30, August 23, and November 15, weighing it and 
analyzing it at these different dates. I think it is not necessary to 
give the results in detail. From the 5th of December to the 30th 
of April, there was no loss of nitrogen in the heap, and compar- 
atively little loss of soluble mineral matters ; but from April 30 to 
August 23, there was considerable loss in both these valuable in- 
gredients, which were washed out of the heap by rain. 



66 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Dr. Voelcker draws the following conclusions from his experi- 
ments : 

"Having described at length my experiments with farm -yard 
manure," he says, " it may not be amiss to state briefly the more 
prominent and practically interesting points which have been 
developed in the course of this investigation. I would, therefore,, 
observe : 

*' 1. Perfectly fresh farm-yard manure contains but a small pro- 
portion of free ammonia. 

" 2. The nitrogen in fresh dung exists principally in the state of 
insoluble nitrogenized matters. 

" 3. The soluble organic and mineral constituents of dung are 
much more valuable fertilizers than the insoluble. Particular 
care, therefore, should be bestowed upon the preservation of the 
liquid excrements of animals, and for the same reason the manure 
should be kept in perfectly water-proof pits of suflicient capacity 
to render the setting up of dung-heaps in the corner of fields, as 
much as it is possible, unnecessary. 

*'4. Farm-yard manure, even in quite a fresh state, contains 
phosphate of lime, which is much more soluble than has hitherto 
been suspected. 

" 5. The urine of the horse, cow, and pig, does not contain any 
appreciable quantity of phosphate of lime, whilst the drainings of 
dung-heaps contain considerable quantities of this valuable fer- 
tilizer. The drainings of dung-heaps, partly for this reason, are 
more valuable than the urine of our domestic animals, and, there- 
fore, ought to be prevented by all available means from running 
to waste. 

" 6. The most effectual means of preventing loss in fertilizing 
matters is to cart the manure directly on the field whenever cir- 
cumstances allow this to be done. 

"7. On all soils with a moderate proportion of clay, no fear 
need to be entertained of valuable fertilizing substances becoming 
wasted if the manure cannot be plowed in at once. Fresh, and 
even well-rotten, dung contains very little free ammonia ; and 
since active fermentation, and with it the further evolution of 
free ammonia, is stopped by spreading out the manure on the 
field, valuable volatile manuring matters can not escape into the 
air by adopting this plan. 

" As all soils with a moderate proportion of clay possess in a 
remarkable degree the power of absorbing and retaining manuring 
matters, none of the saline and soluble organic constituents are 
wasted even by a heavy fall of rain. It may, indeed, be questioned 



KEEPING MANURE UNDER COVER. 67 

whether it is more advisable to plow in the manure at once, or 
to let it lie for some time on the surface, and to give the rain full 
opportunity to wash it into the soil. 

" It appears to me a matter of the greatest importance to regulate 
the application of manure to our fields, so that its constituents 
may become properly diluted and uniformly distributed amongst 
a large mass of soil. By plowmg in the manure at once, it ap- 
pears to me, this desirable end can not be reached so perfectly as 
by allowing the rain to wash in gradually the manure evenly 
spread on the surface of the field. 

" By adopting such a course, in case practical experience should 
confirm my theoretical reasoning, the objection could no longer be 
maintained that the land is not ready for carting manure upon it. 
I am inclined to recommend, as a general rule : Cart the manure 
on the field,, spread it at once, and wait for a favorable opportu- 
nity to plow it in. In the case of clay soils, I have no hesitation 
to say the manure may be spread even six months before it is 
plowed in, without losing any appreciable quantity in manuring 
matter. 

" I am perfectly aware, that on stiff clay land, farm-yard ma; 
nure, more especially long dung, when plowed in before the 
frost sets in, exercises a most beneficial action by keeping the 
soil loose, and admitting the free access of frost, which pulverizes 
the land, and would, therefore, by no means recommend to leave 
the manure spread on the surface without plowing it in. All I 
wish to enforce is, that when no other choice is left but either to 
set up the manure in a heap in a corner of the field, or to spread 
it on the field, without plowing it in directly, to adopt the latter 
plan. In the case of very light sandy soils, it may perhaps not 
be advisable to spread out the manure a long time before it is 
plowed in, since such soils do not possess the power of retaining 
manuring matters in any marked degree. On light sandy soils, I 
would suggest to manure with well-fermented dung, shortly before 
the crop intended to be grown is sown. 

" 8. Well-rotten dung contains, likewise, little free ammonia, 
but a very much larger proportion of soluble organic and saline 
mineral matters than fresh manure. 

" 9. Rotten dung is richer in nitrogen than fresh. 

" 10. Weight for weight, rotten dung is more valuable than 
fresh. 

" 11. In the fermentation of dung, a very considerable propor- 
tion of the organic matters in fresh manure is dissipated into the 
air in the form of carbonic acid and other gases. 



68 TALKS ON MANURES. 

" 13. Properly regulated, however, the fermentation of dung is 
not attended with any great loss of nitrogen, nor of saline mineral 
matters. 

" 13. During the fermentation of dung, ulmic, humic, and other 
organic acids are formed, as well as gypsum, which fix the am- 
monia generated in the decomposition of the nitrogenized con- 
stituents of dung. 

" 14. During the fermentation of dung, the phosphate of lime 
which it contains is rendered more soluble than in fresh manure. 

" 15. In the interior and heated portions of manure-heaps, am- 
monia is given off; but, on passing into the external and cold lay- 
ers of dung-heaps, the free ammonia is retained in the heap. 

" 16. Ammonia is not given off from the surface of well-com- 
pressed dung-heaps, but on turning manure-heaps, it is wasted in 
appreciable quantities. Dung-heaps, for this reason, should not 
be turned more frequently than absolutely necessary. 

" 17. No advantage appears to result from carrying on the fer- 
mentation of dung too far, but every disadvantage. 

" 18. Farm-yard manure becomes deteriprated in value, when 
kept in heaps exposed to the weather, the more the longer it is 
kept. 

" 19. The loss in manuring matters, which is incurred in keep- 
ing manure-heaps exposed to the weather, is not so much due to 
the volatilization of ammonia as to the removal of ammoniacal 
salts, soluble nitrogenized organic matters, and valuable mineral 
matters, by the rain which falls in the period during which the 
manure is kept. 

" 20. If rain is excluded from dung-heaps, or little rain falls at 
a time, the loss in ammonia is trifling, and no saline matters, of 
course, are removed ; but, if much rain falls, especially if it de- 
scends in heavy showers upon the dung-heap, a serious loss in 
ammonia, soluble organic matter, phosphate of lime, and salts of 
potash is incurred, and the manure becomes rapidly deteriorated 
in value, whilst at the same time it is diminished in weight. 

" 21. Well-rotten dung is more readily affected by the deteriorat- 
ing influence of rain than fresh manure. 

" 22. Practically speaking, all the essentially valuable manuring 
constituents are preserved by keeping farm-yard manure under 
cover. 

" 23. If the animals have been supplied with plenty of litter, 
fresh dung contains an insufficient quantity of water to induce an 
active fermentation. In this case, fresh dung can not be properly 



AN ENGLISH PLAN OF KEEPING MANURE. 69 

fermented under cover, except water or liquid manure is pumped 
over the heap from time to time. 

" Where much straw is used in the manufacture of dung, and 
no provision is made to supply the manure in the pit at any time 
with the requisite amount of moisture, it may not be advisable to 
put up a roof over the dung-pit. On the other hand, on farms 
where there is a deticiency of straw, so that the moisture of the 
excrements of our domestic animals is barely absorbed by the lit- 
ter, the advantage of erecting a roof over the dung-pit will be 
found very great. 

" 34. The worst method of making manure is to produce it by 
animals kept in open yards, since a large proportion of valuable 
fertilizing matters is wasted in a short time ; and after a lapse of 
twelve months, at least two-thirds of the substance of the manure 
is wasted, and only one-third, inferior in quality to an equal 
weiglit of fresh dung, is left behind. 

" 25. The most rational plan of keeping manure in heaps ap- 
pears to me that adopted by Mr. Lawrence, of Cirencester, and 
described by him at length in Morton's ' Cyclopaedia of Agricul- 
ture,' under the head Of * Manure.' " 



CHAPTER XVI. 

AN ENGLISH PLAN OF KEEPING MANURE. 

" I would like to know," said the Deacon, " how Mr. Lawrence 
manages his manure, especially as his method has received such 
high commendation." 

Charley got the second volume of "Morton's Cyclopaedia of Agri- 
culture," from the book shelves, and turned to the article on 
"Manure." He found that Mr. Lawrence adopted the "Box 
System" of feeding cattle, and used cut or chaffed straw for bedding. 
And Mr. Lawrence claims that by this plan " manure will have 
been made under the most perfect conditions." And "when the 
boxes are full at those periods of the year at which manure is re- 
quired for the succeeding crops, it will be most advantageously dis- 
posed of by being transferred at once to the land, and covered in." 

" Good, said the Deacon, " I think he is right there." Charley 
continued, and read as follows : 

" But there will be accumulations of manure requiring removal 



70 TALKS ON MANURES. 

from the homestead at other seasons, at which it cannot be so ap- 
plied, and when it must be stored for future use. The following 
has been found an effectual and economical mode of accomplish- 
ing this ; more particularly when cut Jitter is used, it saves the cost 
of repeated turnings, and effectually prevents the decomposition 
and waste of the most active and volatile principle. 

" Some three or more spots are selected according to the size of 
the farm, in convenient positions for access to the land under till- 
age, and by the side of the farm roads The sites fixed on are 
then excavated about two feet under the surrounding surface. In 
the bottom is laid some three or four inches of earth to absorb any 
moisture, on which the manure is emptied from the carts. This is 
evenly spread, and well trodden as the heap is forming. As soon 
as this is about a foot above the ground level, to allow for sinkmg, 
the heap is gradually gathered in, until it is completed in the form 
of an ordinary steep roof, slightly rounded at the top by the final 
treading. In the course of building this up, about a bushel of salt, 
to two cart-loads of dung is sprinkled amongst it. The base laid 
out at any one time should not exceed that required by the manure 
ready for the complete formation of the heap as far as it goes ; and 
within a day or two after such portion is built up, and it has 
settled into shape, a thin coat of earth in a moist state is plastered 
entirely over the surface. Under these conditions decomposition 
does not take place, in consequence of the exclusion of the air ; or 
at any rate to so limited an extent, that the ammonia is absorbed 
by the earth, for there is not a trace of it perceptible about the 
heap ; though, when put together without such covering, this is 
perceptible enough to leeward at a hundred yards' distance. 

" When heaps thus formed are resorted to in the autumn, either 
for the young seeds, or for plowing in on the stubbles after prepar- 
ing for the succeeding root crop, the manure will be found un- 
diminished in quantity and unimpaired in quality ; in fact, simply 
consolidated. Decomposition then proceeds within the soil, where 
all its results are appropriated, and rendered available for the suc- 
ceeding cereal as well as the root crop. 

" It would be inconvenient to plaster the heap, were the ridge, 
when settled, above six or seven feet from the ground level ; the 
base may be formed about ten to twelve feet wide, and the ridge 
about nine feet from the base, which settles down to about seven 
feet ; this may be extended to any length as further supplies of 
manure require removal. One man is suflScient to form the heap, 
and it is expedient to employ the same man for this service, who 
soon gets into the way of performing the work neatly and quickly. 



AN ENGLISH PLAN OP KEEPING MANURE. 71 

It has been asked where a farmer is to get the earth to cover his 
heaps — it may be answered, keep your roads scraped when they 
get muddy on the surface during rainy weather — in itself good 
economy — and leave this in small heaps beyond the margin of 
your roads. This, in the course of the year, will be found an 
ample provision for the purpose, for it is unnecessary to lay on a 
coat more than one or two inches in thickness, which should be 
done when in a moist state. At any rate, there will always be 
found an accumulation on headlands that may be drawn upon if 
need be. 

" Farmers who have not been in the habit of bestowing care on 
the manufacture and subsequent preservation of their manure, and 
watching results, have no conception of the importance of this. 
A barrowful of such manure as has been described, would pro- 
duce a greater weight of roots and corn, than that so graphically 
described by the most talented and accomplished of our agricul- 
tural authors — as the contents of ' neighbour Drychaff s dung- 
cart, that creaking hearse, that is carrying to the field the dead 
body whose spirit has departed.' 

" There is a source of valuable and extremely useful manure on 
every farm, of which very few farmers avail themselves — the gath- 
ering together in one spot of all combustible waste and rubbish, the 
clippings of hedges, scouring of ditches, grassy accumulation on 
the sides of roads and fences, etc., combined with a good deal of 
earth. If these are carted at leisure times into a large circle, or in 
two rows, to supply the fire kindled in the center, in a spot which 
is frequented by the laborers on the farm, with a three-pronged 
fork and a shovel attendant, and each passer-by is encouraged to 
add to the pile whenever he sees the smoke passing away so freely 
as to indicate rapid combustion, a very large quantity of valuable 
ashes are collected between March and October. In the latter 
month the fire should be allowed to go out ; the ashes are then 
thrown into a long ridge, as high as they will stand, and thatched 
while dry. This Will be found an invaluable store in April, May, 
and June, capable of supplying from twenty to forty bushels of 
ashes per acre, according to the care and industry of the collector, 
to drill with the seeds of the root crop," 

The Deacon got sleepy before Charley finished reading. " We 
can not afford to be at so much trouble in this country," he said, 
and took up hfs hat and left. 

The Deacon is not altogether wrong. Our climate is very dif- 
ferent from that of England, and it is seldom that farmers need 
to draw out manure, and pile it in the field, except in winter, and 



72 TALKS ON MANUKES. 

then it is not necessary, I think, either to dig a pit or to cover the 
heap. Those who draw manure from the city in summer, may 
probably adopt some of Mr. Lawrence's suggestions with ad- 
vantage. 

The plan of collecting rubbish, brush, old wood, and sods, and 
converting them into ashes or charcoal, is one which we could 
often adopt with decided advantage. Our premises would be 
cleaner, and we should have less fungus to speck and crack our 
apples and pears, and, in addition, we should have a quantity of 
ashes or burnt earth, that is not only a manure itself, but is spe- 
cially useful to mix with moist superphosphate and other artificial 
manures, to make them dry enough and bulky enough to be easily 
and evenly distributed by the drill. Artificial manures, so mixed 
with these ashes, or dry, charred earth, are less likely to injure the 
seed than when sown with the seed in the drill-rows, unmixed 
with some such material. Sifted coal ashes are also very useful 
for this purpose. 

CHAPTER XVII. 
SOLUBLE PHOSPHATES IN FARM- YARD MANURE. 

There is one thing in these experiments of Dr. Yoelcker's which 
deserves special attention, and that is the comparatively large 
amount of soluble phosphate of lime in the ash of farm-yard ma- 
nure. I do not think the fact is generally known. In estimating 
the value of animal manures, as compared with artificial manures, it 
is usually assumed that the phosphates in the former are insoluble, 
and, therefore, of less value than the soluble phosphates in super- 
phosphate of lime and other artificial manures. 

Dr. Voelcker found in the ash of fresh farm-yard manure, phos- 
phoric acid equal to 12.23 per cent of phosphate of lime, and of 
this 5.35 was soluble phosphate of lime. 

In the ash of well-rotted manure, he found phosphoric acid 
equal to 12.11 per cent of phosphate of lime, and of this, 4.75 was 
soluble phosphate of lime. 

" That is, indeed, an important fact," said the Doctor, " but I 
thought Professor Voelcker claimed that ' during the fermentation 
of dung, the phosphate of lime which it contains is rendered more 
soluble than in fresh manure.'" 



SOLUBLE PHOSPHATES IN FARM-YARD MANURE. 73 

" He did say so," I replied, " and it may be true, but the above 
figures do not seem to prove it. When he wrote the sentence you 
have quoted, he probably had reference to the fact that he found 
more soluble phosphate of lime in rotted manure than in fresh 
manure. Thus, he found in 5 tons of fresh and 5 tons of rotted 
manure, the following ingredients : 



5 TONS, 
(10,000 LBS.) 



Fresh manure . . 
Rotted manure . 






38.6 
57 3 



1 






1 


1 




g. 




:s 


e 




o 


»< 








ft^ 


1 


§ 




^ 


>»<, 

G 


:^ 




^ 


fe 


Sol. 


Imol. 


^ 


g 


6S.5' 57.3 


9.9 


154 


405 


559 


95.5 


44.6 


4.5 


147 


658 


805 



" It will be seen from the above figures that rotted manure con- 
tains more soluble jphosphate of lime than fresh manure. 

'* But it does not follow from this fact that any of the insoluble 
phosphates in fresh manure have been rendered soluble during the 
fermentation of the manure. 

" There are more insoluble phosphates in the rotted manure than 
in the fresh, but we do not conclude from this fact that any of 
the phosphates have been rendered insoluble during the process of 
fermentation — neither are we warranted in concluding that any of 
them have been rendered soluble, simply because we find more 
soluble phosphates in the rotted manure." 

" Very true," said the Doctor, " but it has been shown that in 
the heap of manure, during fermentation, there was an actual in- 
crease 01 soluble mineral matter during the first six months, and, 
to say the least, it is higlily probable that some of this increase of 
soluble mineral matter contained more or less soluble phos^Dhates, 
and perhaps Dr. Voelcker had some facts to show that such was 
the case, although he may not have published them. At any 
rate, he evidently thinks that the phosphates in manure are ren- 
dered more soluble by fermentation." 

*' Perhaps," said I, " we can not do better than to let the matter 
rest in that form. I am merely anxious not to draw definite con- 
clusions from the facts which the facts do not positively prove. I 
am strongly in favor of fermenting manure, and should be glad to 
have it shown that fermentation does actually convert insoluble 
phosphates into a soluble form." 

There is one thing, however, that these experiments clearly 
prove, and that is, that there is a far larger quantity of soluble 



74 TALKS ON MANURES. 

phosphates in manure than is generally supposed. Of the total 
phosphoric acid in the fresh manure, 43 per cent is in a soluble 
condition ; and in the rotted manure, 40 per cent is soluble. 

This is an important fact, and one which is generally over- 
looked. It enhances the value of farm-yard or stable manure, as 
compared with artificial manures. But of this we may have more 
to say when we come to that part of the subject. I want to make 
one remark. I think there can be little doubt that the proportion 
of soluble phosphates is greater in rich manure, made from grain- 
fed animals, than in poor manure made principally from straw. 
In other words, of 100 lbs. of total phosphoric acid, more of it 
would be in a soluble condition in the rich than in the poor ma- 
nure. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
HOW THE DEACON MAKES MANURE. 

" I think," said the Deacon, " you are talking too much about 
the science of manure making. Science is all well enough, but 
practice is better." 

" That depends," said I, "on the practice. Suppose you tell 
us how you manage your manure." 

" Well," said the Deacon, "I do not know much about plant- 
food, and nitrogen, and phosphoric acid, but I think manure is a 
good thing, and the more you have of it the better. I do not be- 
lieve in your practice of spreading manure on the land and letting 
it lie exposed to the sun and winds. I want to draw it out in the 
spring and plow it under for corn. I think this long, coarse 
manure loosens the soil and makes it light, and warm, and porous. 
And then my plan saves labor. More than half of my manuie is 
handled but once. It is made in the yard and sheds, and lies there 
until it is drawn to the field in the spring. The manure from the 
cow and horse stables, and from the pig-pens, is thrown into the 
yard, and nothing is done to it except to level it down occasionally. 
In proportion to the stock kept, I think I make twice as much 
manure as you do." 

" Yes," said I, " twice as much in hulk, but one load of my 
manure is worth four loads of your long, coarse manure, composed 



HOW THE DEACON MAKES MANURE. 75 

principally of corn-stalks, straw, and water. I think you are wise 
in not spending much time in piling and working over such 
manure." 

The Deacon and I have a standing quarrel about manure. We 
differ on all points. He is a good man, but not what we call a good 
farmer. He cleared up his farm from the original forest, and he 
has always been content to receive what his land would give him. 
If he gets good crops, well, if not, his expenses are moderate, and 
he manages to make both ends meet. I tell him he could double 
his crops, and quadruple his profits, by better farming — but though 
he cannot disprove the facts, he is unwilling to make any change 
in his system of farming. And so he continues to make just as 
much manure as the crops he is obliged to feed out leave in his 
yards, and no more. He does not, in fact, make any manure. He 
takes what comes, and gets it on to his land with as little labor as 
possible. 

It is no use arguing with such a man. And it certainly will not 
do to contend that his method of managing manure is all wrong. 
His error is in making such poor manure. But with such poor 
stuff as he has in his yard, I believe he is right to get rid of it with 
the least expense possible. 

I presume, too, that the Deacon is not altogether wrong in regard 
to the good mechanical effects of manure on undrained and indif- 
ferently cultivated land. I have no doubt that he bases his opinion 
on experience. The good effects of such manure as he makes 
must be largely due to its mechanical action — it can do little 
towards supplying the more important and valuable elements of 
plant-food. 

I commend the Deacon's system of managing manure to all such 
as make a similar article. But I think there is a more excellent 
way. Feed the stock better, make richer manure, and then it wiU 
pay to bestow a little labor in taking care of it. 



76 TALKS ON MANUKES. 

CHAPTER XIX. 
HOW JOHN JOHNSTON MANAGES HIS MANURE. 

One of the oldest and most successful farmers, in the State of 
New York, is John Johnston, of Geneva. He has a farm on the 
borders of Seneca Lake. It is high, rolling land, but needed under 
draining. This has been thoroughly done — and done with great 
profit and advantage. The soil is a heavy clay loam. Mr. John- 
ston has been in the habit of summer-fallowing largely for wheat, 
generally plowing three, and sometimes four times. He has been 
a very successful wheat-grower, almost invariably obtaining large 
crops of wheat, both of grain and straw. The straw he feeds to 
sheep in winter, putting more straw in the racks than the sheep 
can eat up clean, and using what they leave for bedding. The 
sheep run in yards enclosed with tight board fences, and have 
sheds under the barn to lie in at pleasure. 

Although the soil is rather heavy for Indian corn, Mr. Johnston 
succeeds in growing large crops of this great American cereal. 
Corn and stalks are both fed out on the farm. Mr. J. has not yet 
practised cutting up his straw ard stalks into chaff. 

The land is admirably adapted to the growth of red clover, and 
great crops of clover and timothy-hay are raised, and fed out on 
the farm. Gypsum, or plaster, is sown quite freely on the clover 
in the spring. Comparatively few roots are raised — not to exceed 
an acre — and these only quite recently. The main crops are winter 
wheat, spring barley, Indian corn, clover, and timothy-hay, and 
clover-seed. 

The materials for making manure, then, are wheat and barley 
straw, Indian corn, corn-stalks, clover, and timothy-hay. These 
are all raised on the farm. But Mr. Johnston has for many years 
purchased linseed-oil cake, to feed to his sheep and cattle. 

This last fact must not be overlooked. Mr. J. commenced to 
feed oil-cake when its value was little known here, and when he 
bought it for, I think, seven or eight dollars a ton. He continued 
to use it even when he had to pay fifty dollars per ton. Mr. J. 
has great faith in manure — and it U a faith resting on good evidence 
and long experience. If he had not fed out so much oil-cake and 
clover-hay, he would not have found his manure so valuable. 

" How much oil-cake does he use ? " asked the Deacon. 

" He gives his sheep, on the average, about 1 lb. each per day." 



HOW JOHN JOHNSTON MANAGES HIS MANUKE. 77 

If he feeds out a ton of clover-hay, two tons of straw, (for feed and 
bedding,) and one ton of oil-cake, the manure obtained from this 
quantity of food and litter, would be worth, according to Mr. 
Lawes' table, given on page 45, $34,72. 

On the other hand, if he fed out one ton of corn, one ton of 
clover-hay, and two tons of straw, for feed and bedding, the manure 
would be worth $21. 65. 

If he fed one ton of corn, and three tons of straw, the manure 
would be worth only $14.69. 

He would get as much manure from the three tons of straw and 
one ton of corn, as from the two tons of straw, one ton of clover- 
hay, and one ton of oil-cake, while, as before said, the manure in 
the one case would be worth $14.69, and in the other $34.72. 

In other words, a load of the good manure would be worth, when 
spread out on the land in the field or garden, more than two loads 
of the straw and corn manure. 

To get the same amount of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and 
potash, you have to spend more than twice the labor in cleaning 
out the stables or yards, more than twice the labor of throwing 
or wheeling it to the manure pile, more than twice the labor of 
turning the manure in the pile, more than twice the labor of 
loading it on the carts or wagons, more than twice the labor of 
drawmg it to the field, more than twice the labor of unloading it 
into heaps, and more than twice the labor of spreading it in the 
one case than in the other, and, after all, twenty tons of this poor 
manure would not produce as good an efiect the first season as ten 
tons of the richer manure. 

" Why so " ? asked the Deacon. 

" Simply because the poor manure is not so active as the richer 
manure. It will not decompose so readily. Its nitrogen, phos- 
phoric acid, and potash, are not so available. The twenty tons, 
may, in the long run, do as much good as the ten tons, but I very 
much doubt it. At any rate, I would greatly prefer the ten tons 
of the good manure to twenty tons of the poor— even when spread 
out on the land, ready to plow under. What the difference would 
be in the value of the manure in the yard, you can figure for your- 
self. It would depend on the cost of handling, drawing, and 
spreading the extra ten tons." 

The Deacon estimates the cost of loading, drawing, unloading, 
and spreading, at fifty cents a ton. This is probably not far out of 
the way, though much depends on the distance the manure has to 
be drawn, and also on the condition of the manure, etc. 



78 TALKS ON MANURES. 

The four tons of feed and bedding Tvill make, at a rough estimate, 
about ten tons of manure. 

This ten tons of straw and corn manure, according to Mr. Lawes' 
estimate, is worth, in the field. $14.69. And if it costs fifty cents a 
load to get it on the land its value, in the yard., would be |9. 69 — 
or nearly ninety-seven cents a ton. 

The ten tons of good manure, according to the same estimate, is 
worth, in the fisld, $34.72, and, consequently, would be worth, in 
the yard, |29.73. In other words, a ton of poor manure is worth, 
in the yard, ninety-seven cents a ton, and the good manure $2,97. 

And so in describing John Johnston's method of managing 
manure, this fact must be borne in mind. It might not pay the 
Deacon to spend much labor on manure worth only ninety-seven 
cents a ton, while it might pay John Johnston to bestow some con- 
siderable time and labor on manure worth $2.97 per ton. 
" But is it really worth this sum ? " asked the Deacon. 
" In reply to that," said I, " all I claim is that the figures are com- 
parative. If your manure, made as above described, is worth 
nmety-seven cents a ton in they aid ^ then John Johnston's manure, 
made as stated, is certainly worth, at least, $2.97 per ton in the 
yard." 
Of this there can be no doubt. 

*' If you think," I continued, " your manure, so made, is worth 
only half as much as Mr. Lawes' estimate ; in other words, if your 
ten tons of manure, instead of being worth $14. 69 in the field, is 
worth only $7.35 ; then John Johnston's ten tons of manure, 
instead of being worth $34.72 in the field, is worth only $17.36." 

" That looks a little more reasonable," said the Deacon, " John 
Johnston's manure, instead of being worth $2.97 per ton in the yard, 
is worth only $1 48 per ton, and mine, instead of being worth ninety- 
seven cents a ton, is worth forty-eight and a half cents a ton." 

The Deacon sat for a few minutes looking at these figures. 
"They do not seem so extravagantly high as I thought them at 
first," he said, " and if you will reduce the figures in Mr. Lawes' 
table one-half all through, it will be much nearer the truth. I 
think my manure is worth forty-eight and a half cents a ton in the 
yard, and if your figures are correct, I suppose I must admit that 
John Johnston's manure is worth $1.48 per ton in the yard." 

I was very glad to get such an admission from the Deacon. He 
did not see that he had made a mistake in the figures, and so I got 
him to go over the calculation again. 



HOW JOHN JOHNSTON MANAGES HIS MANURE. 79 

" You take a pencil, Deacon," said I, " and write down the 
figures : 

Manure from a ton of cil-cake $19.73 

Manure from a ton of clover-hay 9.64 

Manure from two tons of straw 5.3G 



|3i.72 

" Tbis would make about ten tons of manure. We have asreed 
to reJuce the estimate one-half, and consequently we have $17.36 
as the value of the ten tons of manure." 

" This is John Johnston's manure. It is worth |1.73 per ton in 
the ^eld. 

" It costs, we have estimated, 50 cents a ton to handle the manure, 
and consequently it is worth in the yard $1.23 per ton." 

" This is less than we made it before," said the Deacon. 

" Never mind that," said I, " the figures are correct. Now write 
down what your manure is worth : 

Manure from 1 ton of com $6.65 

Manure fi'om 3 tons of straw 8.04 



$14.69 

" Thia will make about ten tons of manure. In this case, as in the 
other, we are to reduce the estimate one-half. Consequently, we 
have $7.35 as the value of this ten tons of manure in the field, or 
73|- cents a ton. It costs, we have estimated, 50 cents a ton to 
handle the manure, and, therefore, it is worth in the yard, 23^ cents 
a ton." 

*' John Johnston's manure is worth in the yard, $1.23 per ton. 
The Deacon's manure is worth in the yard, 23^ cents per ton." 

" There is some mistake," exclaimed the Deacon, " you said, at 
first, that one load of John Johnston's manure was worth as much 
as two of my loads. Now you make one load of his manure worth 
more than five loads of my manure. This is absurd." 

" Not at all. Deacon," said I, "you made the figures yourself. 
You thought Mr. Lawes' estimate too high. You reduced it one- 
half. The figures are correct, and you must accept the conclusion. 
If John Johnston's manure is only worth $1.23 per ton in the yard, 
yours, made from 1 ton of corn and 3 tons of straw, is only 
worth 23^ cents per ton." 

" And now. Deacon," I continued, "while you have a pencil in 
your hand, I want you to make one more calculation. Assuming 
that Mr. Lawes' estimate is too high, and we reduce it one-half. 



80 TALKS ON MANURES. 

figure up what manure is worth when made from straw alone. 
You take 4 tons of wheat straw, feed out part, and use part for 
bedding, It will give you about 10 tons of manure. And this 10 
tons cost you 50 cents a ton to load, draw out, and spread. Now 
figure : 

" Four tons of straw is worth, for manure, according to Mr. 
Lawes' table, $2.68 per ton. We have agreed to reduce the figures 
one half , and so the 

10 tons of manure from the 4 tons of straw is worth. .,$5.36 
Drawias out 10 tons of manure at 50 cents 5.00 



Value of 10 tons of straw-manure in yard 10.36 

" In other words, if John Johnston's manure is worth only $1.23 
per ton in the yard, the straw-made manure is worth only a little 
over 3|- cents a ton in the yard." 

" That is too absurd," said the Deacon. 

" Very well," I replied, ' ' for once I am glad to agree with you. 
But if this is absurd, then it follows that Mr. Lawes' estimate of 
the value of certain foods for manure is not so extravagant as you 
supposed — which is precisely what I wished to prove." 



" You have not told us how Mr. Johnston manages his manure," 
said the Deacon. 

" There is nothing very remarkable about it," I replied. " There 
are many farmers in this neighborhood who adopt the same 
method. I think, however, John Johnston was the first to recom- 
mend it, and subjected himself to some criticism from some of the 
so-called scientific writers at the time, 

" His general plan is to leave the manure in the yards, basements, 
and sheas, under the sheep, until spring. He usually sells his fat 
sheep in March. As soon as the sheep are removed, the manure is 
either thrown up into loose heaps in the yard, or drawn directly 
to the field, where it is to be used, and made into a heap there. 
The manure is not spread on the land until the autumn. It re- 
mains in the heaps or piles all summer, being usually turned once, 
and sometimes twice. The manure becomes thoroughly rotted." 



Mr. Johnston, like the Deacon, applies his manure to the corn 
crop. But the Deacon draws out his fresh green manure in the 
spring, on sod-land, and plows it under. Mr. Johnston, on the 
other hand, keeps his manure in a heap through the summer, 



HOW JOHN JOHNSTON MANAGES HIS MANURE. 81 

spreads it on the sod in September, or tlie first week in October. 
Here it lies until next spring. The grass and clover grow up 
through manure, and the grass and manure are turned under next 
spring, and the land planted to corn. 

Mr. Johnston is thoroughly convinced that he gets far more 
benefit from the manure when applied on the surface, and left ex- 
posed for several months, than if he plowed it under at once. 

I like to write and talk about John Johnston. I like to visit 
him. He is so delightfully enthusiastic, believes so thoroughly in 
good farming, and has been so eminently successful, that a day 
spent in his company can not fail to encourage any faraier to re- 
newed efibrts in improving his soil. " You inust drain," he wrote 
to me; "when I first commenced farming, I never made any 
money until I began to underdrain." But it is not underdraining 
alone that is the cause of his eminent success. When he bought 
his farm, " near Geneva," over fifty years ago, there was a pile of 
manure in the yard that had lain there year after year, until it was, 
as he said, " as black as my hat." The former owner regarded it 
as a nuisance, and a few months before young Johnston bought 
the farm, had given some darkies a cow on condition that they 
would draw out this manure. They drew out six loads, took the 
cow — and that was the last seen of them. Johnston drew out this 
manure, raised a good crop of wheat, and that gave him a start. 
He says he has been asked a great many times to what he owes his 
success as a farmer, and he has replied that he could not tell 
whether it was "dung or credit." It was probably neither. It 
was the man — ^his intelligence, industry, and good common sense. 
That heap of black mould was merely an instrument in his hands 
that he could turn to good account. 

His first crop of wheat gave him " credit." and this also he used 
to advantage. He believed that good farming would pay, and it 
was this faith in a generous soil that made him willing to spend 
the money obtained from the first crop of wheat in enriching the 
land, and to avail himself of his credit. Had he lacked this faith- 
had he hoarded every sixpence he could have ground out of the 
soil, who would have ever heard of John Johnston ? He has 
been liberal with his crops and his animals, and has ever found 
them grateful. This is the real lesson which his life teaches. 

He once wrote me he had something to show me. He did not 
tell me what it was, and when I got there, he took me to a field of 
grass that was to be mown for hay. The field had been in winter 
wheat the year before. At the time of sowing the wheat, the 



83 TALKS ON MANURES. 

whole field was seeded down with timothy. No clover was sown 
either then or in the spring ; but after the wheat was sown, he put 
on a slight dressing of manure on two portions of the field that 
he thought were poor. He told the man to spread it out of the 
wagon just as thin as he could distribute it evenly over the land. 
It was a very light manuring, but the manure was rich, and thor- 
oughly rotted. I do not recollect whether the efl"ect of the manure 
was particularly noticed on the wheat ; but on the grass, the fol- 
lowing spring, the effect was sufficiently striking. Those two por- 
tions of the field where the manure was spread were covered with 
a splendid crop of red clover. You could see the exact line, in both 
cases, where the manure reached. It looked quite curious. No 
clover-seed was sown, and yet there was as fine a crop of clover 
as one could desire. 

On looking into the matter more closely, we found that there 
was more or less clover all over the field, but where the manure 
was not used, it could hardly be seen. The plants were small, 
and the timothy hid them from view. But where the manure 
was used, these plants of clover had been stimulated in their 
growth until they covered the ground. The leaves were broad 
-and vigorous, while in the other case they were small, and almost 
dried up. This is probably the right explanation. The manure 
did not " bring in the clover ;" it simply increased the growth of 
that already in the soil. It shows the value of manure for grass. 

This is what Mr. Johnston wanted to show me. " I. might have 
written and told you, but you would not have got a, clear idea of 
the matter." This is true. One had to see the great luxuriance of 
that piece of clover to fully appreciate the efi'ect of the manure. 
Mr, J. said the manure on that grass was worth $30 an acre — that 
is, on the three crops of grass, before the field is again plowed. I 
have no doubt that this is true, and that the future crops on the 
land will also be benefited — not directly from the manure, per- 
haps, but from the clover-roots in the soil. And if the field were 
pastured, the effect on future crops would be very decided. 



MT OWN PLAN OF MANAGING MANURE. 83 

CHAPTEE XX. 

MY OWN PLAN OF MANAGING MANURE. 

One of the cliarms and the advantages of agriculture is that a 
farmer must think for himself. He should study principles, and 
apply them in practice, as best suits his circumstances. 

My own metho;! of managing manure gives me many of the 
advantages claimed for the Deacon's method, and John Johnston's, 
also. 

" I do not understand what you mean," said the Deacon ; " my 
method differs essentially from that of John Johnston." 

" True," I replied, " you use your winter-made manure in the 
spring ; while Mr. Johnston piles his, and gets it thoroughly fer- 
mented ; but to do this, he has to keep it until the autumn, and it 
does not benefit his corn-crop before the next summer. He loses 
the use of his manure for a year." 

I think my method secures both these advantages. I get my 
winter-made manure fermented and in good condition, and yet 
have it ready for spring crops. 

In the first place, I should remark that my usual plan is to cut 
up all the fodder for horses, cows, and sheep. For horses, I some- 
times use long straw for bedding, but, as a rule, I prefer to run 
everything through a feed-cutter. We do^ot steam the food, and 
we let the cows and sheep have a liberal supply of cut corn-stalks 
and straw, and what they do not eat is thrown out of the mangers 
and racks, and used for bedding. 

I should state, too, that I keep a good many pigs, seldom having 
less than 50 breeding sows. My pigs are mostly sold at from two 
to • four months old, but we probably average 150 head the year 
round. A good deal of my manure, therefore, comes from the 
pig-pens, and from two basement cellars, where my store hogs 
sleep in winter. 

In addition to the pigs, we have on the farm from 150 to 200 
Cotswold and grade slieep ; 10 cows, and 8 horses. These are our 
manure makers. 

The raw material from which the manure is manufactured con- 
sists of wheat, barley, rye, and oat-straw, corn-stalks, corn-fodder, 
clover and timothy-hay, clover seed-hay, bean-straw, pea-straw, 
potato-tops, mangel-wurzel, turnips, rape, and mustard. These 
are all raised on the farm ; and, in addition to the home-grown 
oats, peas, and corn, we buy and feed out considerable quantities 



84 TALKS ON MANURES. 

of bran, shorts, fine-mid dliugs, malt-combs, corn-meal, and a little 
oil-cake. I sell wheat, rye, barley, and clover-seed, apples, and 
potatoes, and sometimes cabbages and turnips. Probably, on the 
average, for each $100 I receive from the sale of these crops, I 
purchase $25 worth of bran, malt-combs, corn-meal, and other 
feed for animals. My farm is now rapidl}^ increasing in fertility 
and productiveness. The crops, on the average, are certainly at 
least double what they were when I bought the farm thirteen 
years ago ; and much of this increase has taken place during the 
last five or six years, and I expect to see still greater improvement 
year by year. 

" Never mind all that," said the Deacon ; " we all know that 
manure will enrich land, and I will concede that your farm has 
greatly improved, aud can not help but improve if you continue 
to make and use as much manure." 

" I expect to make more and more manure every year," said I. 
" The larger the crops, the more manure we can make ; and the 
more manure we make, the larger the crops." 



The real point of diflFerence between my plan of managing ma- 
nure, and the plan adopted by the Deacon, is essentially this : I 
aim to keep all my manure in a compact pile, where it will slowly 
ferment all winter. The Deacon throws his horse-manure into a 
heap, just outside the. stable door, and the cow-manure into an- 
other heap, and the pig-manure into another heap. These heaps 
are more or less scattered, and are exposed to the rain, and snow, 
and frost. The horse-manure is quite likely to ferment too rap- 
idly, and if in a large heap, and the weather is warm, it not 
unlikely *' fire-fangs " in the center of the heap. On the other 
hand, the cow-manure lies cold and dead, and during the winter 
freezes into solid lumps. 

I wheel or cart all my manure into one central heap. The main 
object is to keep it as compact as possible. There are two advan- 
tages in this : 1st, the manure is less exposed to the ram , and 
(2d), when freezing weather sets in, only a few inches of the ex- 
ternal portion of the heap is frozen. I have practised this plan 
for several years, and can keep my heap of manure slowly fer- 
menting during the whole winter. 

But in order to ensure this result, it is necessary to begin mak- 
ing the heap before winter sets in. The plan is this : 

Having selected the spot in the yard most convenient for mak- 
ing the heap, collect all the manure that can be found in the sheep- 



MY OWN PLAN OF MANAGING MANURE. 85 

yards, sheds, cow and horse stables, pig-pens, and hen-house, to- 
gether with leaves, weeds, and refuse from the garden, and wheel 
or cart it to the intended heap. If you set a farm-man to do the 
work, tell him you want to make a hot-bed about five feet high, six 
feet wide, and six feet long. I do not think I have ever seen a 
farm where enough material could not be found, say in November, 
to make such a heap. And this is all that is needed. If tlie ma- 
nure is rich, if it is obtained from animals eating clover-hay, bran, 
grain, or other food rich in nitrogen, it will soon ferment. But if 
the manure is poor, consisting largely of straw, it will be very de- 
sirable to make it richer by mixing with it bone-dust, blood, heu- 
droppings, woollen rags, chamber-lye, and animal matter of any 
kind that you can find. 

The richer you can make the manure, the more readily will it 
ferment. A good plan is to take the horse or sheep manure, a 
few weeks previous, and use it for bedding the pigs. It will 
absorb the liquid of the pigs, and make rich manure, which will 
soon ferment when placed in a heap. 

If the manure in the heap is too dry, it is a good plan, when you 
are killing hogs, to throw on to the manure all the warm water, 
hair, blood, intestines, etc. You may think I am making too 
much of such a simple matter, but I have had letters from farmers 
who have tried this plan of managing manure, and they say that 
they can not keep it from freezing. One reason for this is, that 
they do not start the heap early enough, and do not take pains to 
get the manure into an active fermentation before winter sets in. 
Much depends on this. In starting a fire, you take pains to get a 
little fine, dry wood, that will burn readily, and when the fire is 
fairly going, put on larger sticks, and presently you have such a 
fire that you can burn wood, coal, stubble, sods, or anything you 
wish. And so it is with a manure-heap. Get the fire, or fermen- 
tation, or, more strictly speaking, putrefaction fairly started, and 
there will be little trouble, if the heap is large enough, and fresh 
material is added from time to time, of continuing the fermenta- 
tion all winter. 

Another point to be observed, and especially in cold weather, is 
to keep the sides of the heap straight, and the top leml. You 
must expose the manure in the heap as little as possible to frost 
and cold winds. The rule should be to spread every wheel-bar- 
rowful of manure as soon as it is put on the heap. If left un- 
spread on top of the heap, it will freeze ; and if afterwards cov- 
ered with other manure, it will require considerable heat to melt 
it, and thus reduce the temperature of the whole heap. 



86 TALKS ON MANURES. 

It is far less work to manage a heap of manure in this way than 
may be supposed from my description of the plan. The truth is, 
I find, in point of fact, that it is not an easy thing to manage ma- 
nure in this way ; and I fear not one farmer in ten will succeed 
the first winter he undertakes it, unless he gives it his personal 
attention. It is well worth trying, however, because if your heap 
should freeze up, it will be, at any rate, in no worse condition 
than if managed in the ordinary way; and if you do succeed, 
even in part, you will have manure in good condition for im- 
mediate use in the spring. 



As I have said before, I keep a good many pigs. Now pigs, if 
fed on slops, void a large quantity of liquid manure, and it is not 
always easy to furnish straw enough to absorb it. When straw 
and stalks are cut into chatf, they will absorb much more liquid 
than when used whole. For this reason we usually cut all our 
straw and stalks. We also use the litter from the horse-stable for 
bedding the store hogs, and also sometimes, when comparatively 
dry, we use the refuse sheep bedding for the same purpose. 
Where the sheep barn is contiguous to the pig-pens, and when the 
sheep bedding can be thrown at once into the pig-pens or cellar, 
it is well to use bedding freely for the sheep and lambs, and re- 
move it frequently, throwing it into the pig-pens. I do not want 
my sheep to be compelled to eat up the straw and corn-stalks too 
close. I want them to pick out what they like, and then throw 
away what they leave in the troughs for bedding. Sometimes we 
take out a five-bushel basketful of these direct from the troughs, 
for bedding young pigs, or sows and pigs in the pens, but as a 
rule, we use them first for bedding the sheep, and then afterwards 
use the sheep bedding in the fattening or store pig-pens. 

"And sometimes," remarked the Deacon, " you use a little long 
straw for your young pigs to sleep on, so that they can bury 
themselves in the straw and keep warm." 

" True," I replied, " and it is not a bad plan, but we are not 
now talking about the management of pigs, but how we treat our 
manure, and how we manage to have it ferment all winter." 

A good deal of our pig-manure is, to borrow a phrase from the 
pomologists, " double-worked." It is horse or sheep-manure, 
used for bedding pigs and cows. It is saturated with urine, and is 
much richer in nitrogenous material than ordinary manure, and 
consequently will ferment or putiify much more rapidly. Usually 
pig-manure is considered " cold," or sluggish, but this double- 



MY OWN PLAN OF MANAGING MANURE. 87 

worked pig-manure will ferment even more rapidly than sheep or 
liorse-manure alone. 

Unmixed cow-manure is heavy and cold, and when kept in a 
heap by itself out of doors, is almost certain to freeze up solid dur- 
ing the winter. 

We usually wheel out our cow-dung every day, and spread on 
the manure heap. 

This is one of the things that needs attention. There will be 
a constant tendency to put all the cow-dung together, instead of 
mixing it with the lighter and more active manure from the horses, 
sheep,\nd pigs. Spread it out and cover it with some of the more 
strawy manure, which is not so liable to freeze. 

Should it so happen— as will most likely be the case— that on 
looking at your heap some morning when the thermometer is 
below zero, you find that several wheel-barrowf uls of manure that 
were put on the heap the day before, were not spread, and are now 
crusted over with ice, it will be well to break up the barrowfuls, 
even if necessary to use a crowbar, and place the frozen lumps of 
manure on the outside of the heap, rather than to let them lie in the 
center of the pile. Your aim should be always to keep the center 
of the heap warm and in a state of fermentation. You do not 
want the fire to go out, and it will not go out if the heap is prop- 
erly managed, even should all the sides and top be crusted over 
with a layer of frozen manure. 

During very severe weather, and when the top is frozen, it is a good 
plan, when you are about to wheel some fresh manure on to the 
heap, to remove a portion of the frozen crust on top of the heap, 
near the center, and make a hole for the fresh manure, which 
should be spread and covered up. 

When the heap is high enough, say five feet, we commence an- 
other heap alongside. In doing this, our plan is to clean out some 
of the sheep-sheds or pig-pens, where the manure has accumulated 
for some time. This gives us much more than the daily supply. 
Place this manure on the outside of the new heap, and then take a 
quantity of hot, fermenting, manure from the middle of the old 
heap, and throw it into the center of the new heap, and then cover 
it up with the fresh manure. I would put in eight or ten bushels, 
or as much as will warm up the center of the new heap, and start 
fermentation. The colder the weather, the more of this hot 
manure should you take from the old heap — the more the better. 
Fresh manure should be added to the old heap to fill up the hole 
made by the removal of the hot manure. 



88 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



" You draw out a great many loads of manure during the 
winter," said the Deacon, " and pile it in the field, and I have al^ 
ways thought it a good plan, as you do the work when there is 
little else to do, and when the ground is frozen." 

Yes, this is an improvement on my old plan. I formerly used 
to turn over the heap of manure in the barn-yard in March, or a3 
soon as fermentation had ceased. 

The object of turning the heap is (1st,) to mix the manure and 
make it of uniform quality ; (2d,) to break the lumps and make the 
manure fine; and (3d,) to lighten up the manure and make it 
loose, thus letting in the air and inducing a second fermentation. 
It is a good plan, and well repays for the labor. In doing the 
work, build up the end and sides of the new heap straight, 
and keep the top flat. Have an eye on the man doing the work, 
and see that he breaks up the manure and mixes it thoroughly, 
and that he goes to the bottom of the heap. 

My new plan that the Deacon alludes to, is, instead of turning 
the heap in the yard, to draw the manure from the heap in the 
yard, and pile it up in another heap in the field where it is to be 
used. This has all the effects of turning, and at the same time 
saves a good deal of team-work in the spring. 



The location of the manure-heap in the 
field deserves some consideration. If the 
manure is to be used for root-crops or po- 
tatoes, and if the land is to be ridged, and 
the manure put in the ridges, then it will 
be desirable to put the heap on the head- 
land, or, better still, to make two heaps, 
one on the headland top of the field, and 
the other on the headland at the bottom of 
the field,as shown in the annexed engraving. 
We draw the manure with a cart, the 
horse walking between two of the ridges 
(D), and the wheels of the cart going in C 
and E. The manure is pulled out at the 
back end of the cart into small heaps, 
about five paces apart. 
" That is what I object to with you 
A, B, Manure Heaps ; (7, agricultural writers," said the Doctor ; " you 
i), E, Ridges, 2k ft. apart, gay 'about five paces,' and sometimes ' about 
five paces would mean 4 yards, and sometimes 6 yards ; and if you 





1 A 1 



O 


CDE 










1 B 1 



MY OWN PLAN OF MANAGING MANURE. 



89 



put 10 tons of manure per acre in tbe one case, you would put 15 
tons in the other — which makes quite a difference in the dose," 

The Doctor is right. Let us figure a little. If your cart holds 
30 bushels, and if the manure weighs 75 lbs. to the bushel, and 
you wish to put on 10 tons of manure per acre, or 1,500 bushels, 
or 13^ cart-loads, then, as there are 43,560 square feet in an acre, 
you want a bushel of manure to 29 square feet, or say a space 2 
yards long, by nearly 5 feet wide. 

Now, as our ridges are 2^ feet apart, and as our usual plan is 
to manure 5 ridges at a time, or 12^ feet wide, a load of 20 
bushels of manure will go over a space 46| feet long, nearly, or 
say 15i yards ; and so, a load would make 3 heaps, 15^ feet apart, 
and there would be 6| bushels in each heap. 



If the manure is to be spread on the surface of the land, there is 
no necessity for placing the heap on the headland. You can make 
the heap or heaps. — " Where most convenient," broke in the Dea- 
con. — " No, not by any means," I replied ; " for if that was the 
rule, the men would certainly put the heap just where it happened 
to be the least trouble for them to draw and throw off the loads." 

The aim should be to put the heap just where it will require 
the least labor to draw the manure on to the land in the spring. 

On what we call " rolling," or hilly land, I would put the heap 
on the highest land, so that in the spring the horses would be 
going down hill with the full carts or wagons. Of course, it 
would be very unwise to adopt this plan if the manure was not 




Meld, 40x20 Bods, showing Position of two Reaps of Manure, a, a. 

drawn from the yards until spring, when the land was soft; 
but I am now speaking of drawing out the manure in the winter, 
when there is sleighing, or when the ground is frozen. No farm- 
er will object to a little extra labor for the teams in the winter, if 
it will save work and time in the spring. 



90 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



If the land is level, then the heap or heaps should be placed 
where the least distance will have to be traveled in drawing the 
manure from the heap to the land. If there is only one heap, the 
best point would be in the center o£ the field. If two heaps, and 
the field is longer than it is broad, say 20 rods wide, and 40 rods 
long, then the heaps should be made as shown on the previous 
page. 

If the field is square, say 40 x 40 rods, and we can have four 
heaps of manure, then, other things being equal, the best points 
for the heaps are shown in the annexed figure : 



.10 RODS 



sMaoi 



«.10 J=19DSA .> > ^ JO RODS X ,v 




Meld, 40x40 Bods, showing Position of four Heaps of Manure, a. a, a, (L 

Having determined where to make the heaps, the next question 
is in regard to size. We make one about 8 feet wide and 6 feet 
high, the length being determined by the quantity of the manure 
we have to draw. In cold weather, it is well to finish the heap 
each day as far as you go, so that the sloping side at the end of the 
heap will not be frozen during the night. Build up the sides 
square, so that the top of the heap shall be as broad as the bottom. 
You will have to see that this is done, for the average farm- 
man, if left to himself, will certainly narrow up the heap like the 
roof of a house. The reason he does this is that he throws the 
manure from the load into the center of the heap, and he can not 
build up the sides straight and square without getting on to the 
heap occasionally, and placing a layer round the outsides. He 



MY OWN PLAN OF MANAGING MANURE. 91 

eliould be instructed, too, to break up the lumps, and mix the ma- 
nure, working it over until it is loose and fine. If there are any 
frozen masses of manure, place them on the east or south outside, 
and not in the middle of the heap. 

If there is any manure in the sheds, or basements, or cellars, or 
pio--pens, clean it out, and draw it at once to the pile in the field, 
and mix it with the manure you are drawing from the heap in 
the yard. 

We generally draw with two teams and three wagons. We 
have one man to fill the wagon in the yard, and two men to drive 
and unload. When the man comes back from the field, he places 
his empty wagon by the side of the heap in the yard, and takes 
ofi" the horses and puts them to the loaded wagon, and drives to 
the heap in the field. If we have men and teams enough, we 
di'aw with three teams and three wagons. In this case, we put a 
reliable man at the heap, who helps the driver to unload, and sees 
that the heap is built properly. The driver helps the man in the 
yard to load up. In the former plan, we have two teams and three 
men ; in the latter case, we have three teams and five men, and as 
we have two men loading and unloading, instead of one, we ought 
to draw out double the quantity of manure in a day. If the 
weather is cold and windy, we put the blankets on the horses un- 
der the harness, so that they will not be chilled while standing at 
the heap in the yard or field. They will trot back lively with the 
empty wagon or sleigh, and the work will proceed briskly, and 
the manure be less exposed to the cold. 

" You do not," said the Doctor, " draw the manure on to the heap 
with a cart, and dump it, as I have seen it done in England ? " 

I did so a few yera's ago, and might do so again if I was piling 
manure in the spring, to be kept over summer for use in the fall. 
The compression caused by drawing the cart over the manure, has 
a tendency to exclude the air and thus retard fermentation. In 
the winter there is certainly no necessity for resorting to any 
means for checking fermentation. In the spring or summer it may 
be well to compress the heap a little, but not more, I think, than 
can be done by the trampling of the workman in spreading the 
manure on the heap. 



" You do not," said the Doctor, " adopt the old-fashioned English 
plan of keeping your manure in a basin in the barn-yard, and yet 
I should think it has some advantages." 



92 TALKS ON MANURES. 

" I practised it here," said I, " for some years. I plowed and 
scraped a large hole or basin in the yard four or five feet deep, with 
a gradual slope at one end for convenience in drawing out the 
loads — the other sides being much steeper. I also made a tank at 
the bottom to hold the drainage, and had a pump in it to pump 
the liquid back on to the heap in dry weather. We threw or 
wheeled the manure from the stables and pig-pens into this basin, 
but I did not like the plan, for two reasons : (1,) the manure being 
spread over so large a surface froze during winter, and (2,) during 
the spring there was so much water in the basin that it checked 
fermentation." 

Now, instead of spreading it all over the basin, we commenced a 
small heap on one of the sloping sides of the basin ; with a horse 
and cart we drew to this heap, just as winter set in, every bit of 
manure that could be found on the premises, and everything that 
would make manure. When got all together, it made a heap seven 
or eight feet wide, twenty feet long, and three or four feet high. 
We then laid planks on the heap, and every day, as the pig-pens, 
cow and horse stables were cleaned out, the manure was wheeled 
on to the heap and shaken out and spread about. The heap soon 
commenced to ferment, and when the cold weather set in, although 
the sides and some parts of the top froze a little, the inside kept 
quite warm. Little chimneys were formed in the heap, where the 
heat and steam escaped. Other parts of the heap would be covered 
with a thin crust of frozen manure. By taking a few forkfuls of 
the latter, and placing them on the top of the "chimneys," they 
checked the escape of steam, and had a tendency to distribute the 
heat to other parts of the heap. In this w^ay the fermentation be- 
came more general throughout all the mass, and not so violent at 
any one spot. 

" But why be at all this trouble ? " — For several reasons. First. 
It saves labor in the end. Two hours' work, in winter, will save 
three hours' work in the spring. And three hours' work in the 
spring is worth more than four hours' work in the winter. So 
that we save half the expense of handling the manure. 2d. When 
manure is allowed to lie scattered about over a large surface, it is 
liable to have much of its value washed out by the rain. In a com- 
pact heap of this kind, the rain or snow that falls on it is not more 
than the manure needs to keep it moist enough for fermentation. 
3d. There is as much fascination in this fermenting heap of 
manure as there is in having money in a savings bank. One is 
continually trying to add to it. Many a cart-load or wheel-barrow- 
ful of material will be deposited that would otherwise be allowed 



MY OWN PLAN OF MANAGING MANURE. 93 

to run to waste. 4th. The manure, if turned over m February or 
March, will be in capital order for applying to root crops ; or if 
your hay and straw contains weed-seeds, the manure will be in 
good condition to spread as a top-dressing on grass-land early in 
the spring. This, I think, is better than keeping it in the yards 
all summer, and then drawing it out on the grass land in Septem- 
ber. You gain six months' or a year's time. You get a splendid 
growth of rich grass, and the red-root seeds will germinate next 
September just as well as if the manure was drawn out at that 
time. If the manure is drawn out early in the spring, and spread 
out immediately, and then harrowed two or three times with a 
Thomas' smoothing-harrow, there is no danger of its imparting a 
rank flavor to the grass. I know from repeated trials that when 
part of a pasture is top-dressed, cows and sheep will keep it much 
more closely cropped down than the part which has not been 
manured. The idea to the contrary originated from not spread- 
ing the manure evenly. 

"Bat why ferment the manure at all ? Why not draw it out 
fresh from the yards ? Does fermentation increase the amount of 
plant-food in the manure ? " — No. But it renders the plant-food 
in the manure more immediately available. It makes it more 
soluble. We ferment manure for the same reason that we de- 
compose bone-dust or mineral phosphates with sulphuric acid, and 
convert them into superphosphate, or for the same reason that we 
grind our corn and cook the meal. These processes add nothing 
to the amount of plant-food in the bones or the nutriment in the 
corn. They only increase its availability. So in fermenting 
manure. When the liquid and solid excrements from well-fed 
animals, with the straw necessary to absorb the liquid, are placed 
in a heap, fermentation sets in and soon effects very important 
changes in the nature and composition of the materials. The in- 
soluble woody fibre of the straw is decomposed and converted into 
humic and ulmic acids. These are insoluble ; and when manure 
consists almost wholly of straw or corn stalks, there would be 
little gained by fermenting it. But when there is a good propor- 
tion of manure from well fed animals in the heap, carbonate of 
ammonia is formed from the nitrogenous compounds in the 
manure, and this ammonia unites with the humic and ulmic acids 
and forms humate and ulmate of ammonia. These ammoniacal 
salts are soluble in water — as the brown color of the drainings of 
a manure heap sufficiently indicates. 

Properly fermented manure, therefore, of good quality, is a 
much more active and immediately useful fertilizer than fresh, un- 



94 TAI.KS ON MANURES. 

fermented manure. There need be no loss of ammonia from 
evaporation, and the manure is far less bulky, and costs far less 
labor to draw out and spread. The only loss that is likeiy to 
occur is from leaching, and this must* he specially guarded against. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE MANAGEMENT OF MANURES.— Continued. 
WHY DO WE FEEMENT MANURE? 

However much farmers may differ in regard to the advantages 
or disadvantages of fermenting manure, I have never met with 
one who contended that it was good, either in theory or practice, 
to leave manure for months, scattered over a barn-yard, exposed 
to the spring and autumn rains, and to the summer's sun and 
wind. All admit that, if it is necessary to leave manure in the 
yards, it should be either thrown into a basin, or put into a pile 
or heap, where it will be compact, and not much exposed. 

We did not need the experiments of Dr. Yoelcker to convince 
us that there was great waste in leaving manure exposed to the 
leaching action of our heavy rains. We did not know exactly how 
much we lost, but we knew it must be considerable. No one ad- 
vocates the practice of exposing manure, and it is of no use to dis- 
cuss the matter. All will admit that it is unwise and wasteful to 
allow manure to lie scattered and exposed over the barn- yards 
any longer than is absolutely necessary. 

We should either draw it directly to the field and use it, or we 
should make it into a compact heap, where it will not receive 
more rain than is needed to keep it moist. ' 

One reason for piling manure, therefore, is to preserve it from 
loss, until we wish to use it on the land. 

" We all admit that," said the Deacon, " but is there anything 
actually gained by fermenting it in the heap ? " — In one sense, 
no ; but in another, and very important sense, yes. When we 
cook corn -meal for our little pigs, we add nothing to it. We have 
no more meal after it is cooked than before. There are no more 
starch, or oil, or nitrogenous matters in the meal, but we think the 
pigs can digest the food more readily. And so, in fermenting 



THE MANAGEMENT OP MANURES. VO 

manuri, we add nothing to it ; there is no more actual nitrogen, 
or phosphoric acid, or potash, or any other ingredient after fer- 
mentation than there was before, but these ingredients are rendered 
more soluble, and can be more rapidly taken up by the p-lants. In 
this sense, therefore, there is a great gain. 

One thing is certain, we do not, in many cases, get anything 
like as much benefit from our manure as the ingredients it con- 
tains would lead us to expect. 

Mr. Lawes, on his clayey soil at Rothamsted, England, has 
grown over thirty crops of wheat, year after year, on the same 
land. One plot has received 14 tons of barn-yard manure per 
acre every year, and yet the produce from this plot is no larger, 
and, in fact, is frequently much less, than from a few hundred 
pounds of artificial manure containing far less nitrogen. 

For nineteen years, 1852 to 1870, some of the plots have received 
the same manure year after year. The following shows the aver 
age yield for the nineteen years : 

Wheat Straw 

per acre. per acre. 

Plot 5,— Mixed mineral manure, alone 17 bus. 15 cwt. 

" 6. — Mixed mineral manure, and 200 lbs. ammo- 

niacal salts 27 bus. 25 cwt. 

*' 7.— Mixed mineral manure, and 400 lbs. ammo- 

niacal salts 36 bus. 36 cwt. 

" 9. — Mixed mineral manure, and 550 lbs. nitrate 

of soda 37 bus. 41 cwt. 

" 2. — 14 tons farm-yard dung 36 bus. 34 cwt. 

The 14 tons (31,360 lbs.) of farm-yard manure contained about 
8,540 lbs. organic matter, 868 lbs. mineral matter, and 200 lbs. ni- 
trogen. The 400 lbs. of ammoniacal salts, and the 550 lbs. nitrate 
of soda, each contained 82 lbs. of nitrogen; and it will be seen 
that this 82 lbs. of nitrogen produced as great an effect as the 200 
lbs. of nitrogen in barn-yard manure. 

Similar experiments have been made on barley, with even more 
striking results. The plot dressed with 300 lbs. superphosphate of 
lime, and 200 lbs. ammoniacal salts per acre, produced as large a 
crop as 14 tons of farm-yard manure. The average yield of barley 
for nineteen crops grown on the same land each year was 48 bus. and 
28 cwt. of straw per acre on both plots. In other words, 41 lbs. of 
nitrogen, in ammoniacal salts, produced as great an effect as 200 
lbs. of nitrogen in farm-yard manure ! During the nineteen years, 
^'ue plot had received 162,260 lbs. of organic matter, 16,492 lbs. of 
mineral matter, and 3,800 lbs. of nitrogen ; while the other had 
received only 5,700 lbs. mineral matter, and 779 lbs. of nitrogen— 
and yet one has produced as large a crop as the other. 



96 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Why this difference ? It will not do to say that more nitrogen 
was applied in the farm-yard manure than was needed. Mr, 
Lawes says : " For some years, an amount of ammonia-salts, con- 
taining 82 lbs. of nitrogen, was applied to one series of plots (on 
barley), but this was found to be too much, the crop generally 
being too heavy and laid. Yet probably about 200 lbs. of nitrogen 
was annually supplied in the dung, but with it there was no over- 
luxuriance, and DO more crop, than where 41 lbs. of nitrogen was 
eupplied in the form of ammonia or nitric acid." 

It would seem that there can be but one explanation of these 
accurately-ascertained facts. The nitrogenous matter in the ma- 
nure is not in an available condition. It is in the manure, but the 
plants can not take it up until it is decomposed and rendered sol- 
uble. Dr. Voelcker analyzed " perfectly fresh horse-dung," and 
found that of free ammonia there was not more than one pound 
in 15 tons ! And yet these 15 tons contained nitrogen enough to 
furnish 140 lbs. of ammonia. 

" But," it may be asked, " will not this fresh manure decompose 
in the soil, and furnish ammonia ? " In light, sandy soil, I pre- 
sume it will do so to a considerable extent. We know that clay 
mixed with manure retards fermentation, but sand mixed with 
manure accelerates fermentation. This, at any rate, is the case 
when sand is added in small quantities to a heap of fermenting 
manure. But I do not suppose it would have the same effect when 
a small quantity of manure is mixed with a large amount of sand, 
as is the case when manure is applied to land, and plowed under. 
At any rate, practical farmers, with almost entire unanimity, think 
well-rotted manure is better for sandy land than fresh manure. 

As to how rapidly, or rather how slowly, manure decomposes 
in a rather heavy loamy soil, the above experiments of Mr. Lawes 
afford very conclusive, but at the same time very discouraging 
evidence. During the 19 years, 3,800 lbs. of nitrogen, and 16,493 
lbs. of mineral matter, in the form of farm-yard manure, were ap- 
plied to an acre of land, and the 19 crops of barley in grain and 
straw removed only 3,724 lbs. of mineral matter, and 1,064 lbs. of 
nitrogen. The soil now contains, unless it has drained away, 
1,736 lbs. more nitrogen per acre than it did when the experiments 
commenced. And yet 41 lbs. of nitrogen in an amilable condition 
is sufficient to produce a good large crop of barley, and 82 lbs. per 
acre furnished more than the plants could organize. 

" Those are very interesting experiments," said the Doctdr, " and 
show why it is that our farmers can afford to pay a higher price 
for nitrogen and phosphoric acid in superphosphate, and other ar- 



THE MANAGEMENT OF MANURES. 97 

tificial manures, than for the same amount of nitrogen and phos- 
phoric acid in siable-manure." 

We will not discuss this point at present. What I want to as- 
certain is, whether we can not find some method of making our 
farm-yard manure more readily available. Piling it up, and let- 
ting it ferment, is one method of doing this, though I think other 
methods will yet be discovered. Possibly it will be found that 
spreading well-rotted manure on the surface of the land will be 
one of the most practical and simplest methods of accomplishing 
this object. 

"We pile the manure, therefore," said Charley, "first, because 
we do not wish it to lie exposed to the rain in the yards, 
and, second, because fermenting it in the heap renders it more 
soluble, and otherwise more available for the crops, when applied 
to the land." 

That is it exactly, and another reason for piling manure is, that 
the fermentation greatly reduces its bulk, and we have less labor 
to perform in drawing it out and spreading it. Ellwanger & 
Barr}'-, who draw several thousand loads of stable-manure every 
year, and pile it up to ferment, tell me that it takes three loads of 
fresh manure to make one load of rotted manure. This, of course, 
has reference to bulk, and not weight. Three tons of fresh barn-yard 
manure, according to the experiments of Dr. Voslcker, will make 
about two tons when well rotted. Even this is a great saving of 
labor, and the rotted manure can be more easily spread, and mixed 
more thoroughly with the soil — a point of great importance. 



" Another reason for fermenting manure," said the Squire, " is 
the destruction of weed-seeds." 

"That is true," said I, " and a very important reason ; but I try 
not to think about this method of killing weed-seeds. It is a great 
deal better to kill the weeds. There can be no doubt that a fer- 
menting manure-heap will kill many of the weed-seeds, but enough 
will usually escape to re-seed the land." 

It is fortunate, however, that the best means to kill weed-seeds 
in the manure, are also the best for rendering the manure most 
efficient. I was talking to John Johnston on this subject a few 
days ago. He told me how he piled manure in his yards. 

"I commence," he said, " where the heap is intended to be, and 
throw the manure on one side, until the bare ground is reached." 

" What is the use of that ?" I asked. 

" If you do not do so," he replied, " there will be some portion of 
5 



yO TALKS ON MANURES. 

the manure under the heap that will be so compact that it will not 

ferment, and the weed-seeds will not be killed." 

" You think," said I, " that weed-seeds can be killed in this way'? " 
" I know they can," he replied," but the heap must be carefully 

made, so that it will ferment evenly, and when the pile is turned, 

the bottom and sides should be thrown into the center of the heap." 

LOSS OF AMMONIA BY FERMENTING MANURE. 

If you throw a quantity of fresh horse-manure into a loose heap, 
fermentation proceeds with great rapidity. Much heat is produced, 
and if the manure is under cover, or there is not rain enough to 
keep the heap moist, the manure will "fire-fang" and a large pro- 
portion of the carbonate of ammonia produced by the fermentation 
will escape into the atmosphere and be lost. 

As I have said before, we use our horse-manure for bedding the 
store and fattening pigs. We throw the manure every morning 
and evening, when the stable is cleaned out, into an empty stall 
near the door of the stable, and there it remains until wanted to 
bed the pigs. We find it is necessary to remove it frequently, 
especially in the summer, as fermentation soon sets in, and the 
escape of the ammonia is detected by its well known pungent 
smell. Throw this manure into the pig-cellar and let the pigs 
trample it down, and there is no longer any escape of ammonia. 
At any rate, I have never perceived any. Litmus paper will detect 
ammonia in an atmosphere containing only one seventy-five 
thousandth part of it; and, as Prof. S. W. Johnson once remarked, 
•' It is certain that a healthy nose is not far inferior in delicacy to 
litmus paper." I feel sure that no ammonia escapes from this 
horse-manure after it is trampled down by the pigs, although it 
contains an additional quantity of " potential ammonia " from the 
liquid and solid droppings of these animals. 

Water has a strong attraction for ammonia. One gallon of ice- 
cold water will absorb 1,150 gallons of ammonia. 

If tlie manure, therefore, is moderately moist, the ammonia is 
not likely to escape. Furthermore, as Dr. Voelcker has shown us, 
during the fermentation of the manure in a heap, ulmic and humic, 
crenic and aprocrenic acids are produced, and these unite with 
the ammonia and " fix " it — in other words, they change it from 
a volatile gas into a non-volatile salt. 

If the heap of manure, therefore, is moist enough and large 
enough, all the evidence goes to show, that there is little or no 
loss of ammonia. If the centre of the heap gets so hot and so dry 
that the ammonia is not retained, there is still no necessity for loss. 



THE MANAGEMENT OP MANURES. 99 

The sides of the heap are cool and moist, and will retain the car- 
bonate of ammonia, the acids mentioned also coming into play. 

The ammonia is much more likely to escape from the top of the 
heap than from the sides. The heat and steam form little chim- 
neys, and when a fermenting manure-heap is covered with snow, 
these little chimneys are readily seen. If you think the manure is 
fermenting too rapidly, and that the ammonia is escaping, trample 
the manure down firmly about the chimneys, thus closing them up, 
and if need be, or if convenient, throw more manure on top, or 
throw on a few pailfuls of water. 

It is a good plan, too, where convenient, to cover the heap with 
soil. I sometimes do this when piling manure in the field, not 
from fear of losing ammonia, but in order to retain moisture in 
the heap. With proper precautions, I think we may safely dismiss 
the idea of any serious loss of ammonia from fermenting manure. 

THE WASTE OF MANURE FROM LEACHING. 

As we have endeavored to show, there is little danger of losing 
ammonia by keeping and fermenting manure. But this is not the 
only question to be considered. We have seen that in 10,000 lbs. 
of fresh farm-yard manure, there is about 64 lbs. of nitrogen. Of 
this, about 15 lbs. are soluble, and 49 lbs. insoluble. Of mineral 
matter, we have in this quantity of manure, 559 lbs., of which 154 
lbs. are soluble in water, and 405 lbs. insoluble. If we had a heap 
of five tons of fermenting manure in a stable, the escape of half an 
ounce of carbonate of ammonia would make a tremendous smell 
and we should at once use means to check the escape of this pre- 
cious substance. But it will be seen that we have in this five tons 
of fresh manure, nitrogenous matter, capable of forming over 
180 lbs. of carbonate of ammonia, over 42 lbs. of which is in a 
soluble condition. This may be leached day after day, slowly and 
imperceptibly, with no heat, or smell, to attract attention. 

How often do we see manure lying under the eaves of an un- 
spouted shed or barn, where one of our heavy showers will satu- 
rate it in a few minutes, and yet where it will lie for hours, and 
days, and weeks, until it would seem that a large proportion of its 
soluble matter would be washed out of it ! The loss is unques- 
tionably very great, and would be greater if it were not for the 
coarse nature of the material, which allows the water to pass 
through it rapidly and without coming in direct contact with only 
the outside portions of the particles of hay, straw, etc., of which 
the manure is largely composed. If the manure was ground up 
very fine, as it would be when prepared for analysis, the loss of 



100 TALKS ON MANURES. 

soluble matter would be still more serious. Or, if the manure was 
first fermented, so that the particles of matter would be more or 
less decomposed and broken up fine, the rain would wash out a 
large amount of soluble matter, ancj prove much more injurious 
th;in if the manure was fresh and unfermented. 

" That is an argument," said the Deacon, " against your plan of 
piling and fermenting manure." 

"Not at all," I replied; "it is a strong reason for not letting 
manure lie under the eaves of an unspouted building — especially 
good manure, that is made from rich food. The better the manure, 
th2 more it will lose from bad management. I have never 
recommended any one to pile their manure where it would receive 
from ten to twenty times as much water as would fall on the sur- 
face of the heap." 

" But you do recommend piling manure and fermenting it in the 
open air and keeping the top flat, so that it will catch all the rain, 
and I think your heaps must sometimes get pretty well soaked." 

" Soaking the heap of manure," I replied, " does not wash out 
any of its soluble matter, promded you carry the matter no further 
than the point of saturation. The water may, and doubtless does, 
wash out the soluble matter from some portions of the manure, but 
if the water does not filter through the heap, but is all absorbed by 
the manure, there is no loss. It is when the water passes through 
the heap that it runs away with our soluble nitrogenous and min- 
eral matter, and with any ready formed ammonia it may find in 
the manure." 



How to keep cows tied up in the barn, and at the same time 
save all the urine, is one of the most difficult problems I have to 
deal with in the management of manure on my farm. The best 
plan I have yet tried is, to throw horse-manure, or sheep-manure, 
back of the cows, where it will receive and absorb the urine. The 
plan works well, but it is a question of labor, and the answer will 
depend on the arrangement of the buildings. If the horses are 
kept near the cows, it will be little trouble to throw the horse- 
litter, every day, under or back of the cows. 

In my own case, my cows are kept in a basement, with a tight 
barn-floor overhead. When this barn-floor is occupied with sheep, 
we keep them well-bedded with straw, and it is an easy matter to 
throw this soiled bedding down to the cow-stable below, where it 
is used to absorb the urine of the cows, and is then wheeled out to 
the manure-heap in the yard. 

At other times, we use dry earth as an absorbent. 



MANURE ON DAIRY-FAEMS. lOil 

CHAPTER XXI I„ 
MANURE ON DAIRY-FARMS. 

Farms devoted principally to dairying ought to be richer and 
more productive than farms largely devoted to the production of 
grain. 

Nearly all the produce of the farm is used to feed the cows, and 
little is sold but milk, or cheese, or butter. 

When butter alone is sold, there ought to be no loss of fertilizing 
matter — as pure butter or oil contains no nitrogen, phosphoric 
acid, or potash. It contains nothing but carbonaceous matter, 
which can be removed from the farm without detriment. 

And even in the case of milk, or cheese, the advantage is all on 
the side of the dairyman, as compared with the grain-grower. A 
dollar's worth of milk or cheese removes far less nitrogen, phos- 
phoric acid, and potash, than a dollar's worth of wheat or other 
grain. Five hundred lbs. of cheese contains about 25 lbs. of nitro- 
gen, and 20 lbs. of mineral matter. A cow that would make this 
amount of cheese would eat not less than six tons of hay, or its 
equivalent in grass or grain, in a year. And this amount of food, 
supposing it to be half clover and half ordinary meadow-hay, 
would contain 240 lbs. of nitrogen and 810 lbs. of mineral matter. 
In other words, a cow eats 240 lbs. of nitrogen, and 25 lbs. are re- 
moved in the cheese, or not quite 10^ per cent, and of mineral 
matter not quite 2^ per cent is removed. If it takes three acres 
to produce this amount of food, there will be 8^- lbs. of nitrogen 
removed by the cheese, per acre, while 30 bushels of wheat would 
remove in the grain 32 lbs. of nitrogen, and 10 to 15 lbs. in the 
straw. So that a crop of wheat removes from five to six times as 
much nitrogen per acre as a crop of cheese ; and the removal of 
mineral matter in cheese is quite insignificant as compared with 
the amount removed in a crop of wheat or corn. If our grain- 
growing farmers can keep up the fertility of their land, as they 
undoubtedly can, the dairymen ought to be making theirs richer 
and more productive every year. 

" All that is quite true," said the Doctor, " and yet from what I 
have seen and heard, the farms in the dairy districts, do not, as a 
rule, show any rapid improvement. In fact, we hear it often 
alleged that the soil is becoming exhausted of phosphates, and that 
the quantity and quality of the grass is deteriorating." 



102 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

"There may be some truth in this," said I, "and yet I will 
hazard the prediction that in no other branch of agriculture shall 
we witness a more decided improvement during the next twenty- 
five years than on farms largely devoted to the dairy. Grain-grow- 
ing farmers, like our friend the Deacon, here, who sells his grain 
and never brings home a load of manure, and rarely buys even a 
ton of bran to feed to stock, and who sells more or less hay, must 
certainly be impoverishing their soils of phosphates much more 
rapidly than the dairyman who consumes nearly all his produce 
on the farm, and sells little except milk, butter, cheese, young 
calves, and old cows." 

"Bones had a wonderful effect," said the Doctor, "on the old 
pastures in the dairy district of Cheshire in England." 

" Undoubtedly," I replied, " and so they will here, and so would 
well-rotted manure. There is nothing in this fact to prove that 
dairying specially robs the soil of phosphates. It is not phosphates 
that the dairyman needs so much as richer manure." 

" What would you add to the manure to make it richer?" asked 
the Doctor. 

"Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash," I replied. 

" But how ? " asked the Deacon. 

" I suppose," said the Doctor, " by buying guano and the German 
potash salts." 

" That would be a good plan," said I ; " but I would do it by buy- 
ing bran, mill-feed, brewer's-grains, malt-combs, corn-meal, oil- 
cake, or whatever was best and cheapest in proportion to value. 
Bran or mill-feed can often be bought at a price at which it will pay 
to use it freely for manure. A few tons of bran worked into a 
pile of cow-dung would warm it up and add considerably to its 
value. It would supply the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, 
in which ordinary manure is deficient. In short, it would convert 
poor manure into rich manure." 

" Well, well," exclaimed the Deacon, " I knew you talked of mix- 
ing dried-blood and bone-dust with your manure, but I did not 
think you would advocate anything quite so extravagant as taking 
good, wholesome bran and spout-feed and throwing it on to your 
manure-pile." 

" Why, Deacon," said I, "we do it every day. I am putting 
about a ton of spout-feed, malt-combs and corn-meal each week 
into my manure-pile, and that is the reason why it ferments so 
readily even in the winter. It converts my poor manure into good, 
rich, well-decomposed dung, one load of which is worth three loads 
of your long, strawy manure." 



MANURE ON DAIRY-FARMS. 103 

" Do you not wet it and let it ferment before putting it in the 
pile?" 

"No, Deacon," said I, "I feed the bran, malt-combs and corn- 
meal to the cows, pigs, and sheep, and let them do the mixing. 
They work it up fine, moisten it, break up the particles, take out 
the carbonaceous matter, which we do not need for manure, and 
the cows and sheep and horses mix it up thoroughly with the hay, 
straw, and corn-stalks, leaving the whole in just the right con- 
dition to put into a pile to ferment or to apply directly to the land." 

" Oh ! I wsee," said the Deacon, " I did not think you used bran 
for manure." 

" Yes, I do. Deacon," said I, " but I use it for food first, and this 
is precisely what I would urge you and all others to do. I feel 
sure that our dairymen can well afford to buy more mill-feed, 
corn-meal, oil-cake, etc., and mix it with* their cow-dung— or 
rather, let the cows do the mixing." 

LETTER FROM THE HON. HARRIS LEWIS. 

I wrote to the Hon. Harris Lewis, the well known dairyman of 
Herkimer Co., K Y., asking him some questions in regard to mak- 
ing and managing manure on dairy farms. The questions will be 
understood from the answers. He writes as follows : 

" My Friend Harris.— This being the first leisure time I have had 
since the receipt of your last letter, I devote it to answering your 
questions : 

" 1st. I have no manure cellar. 

" I bed my cows with dry basswood sawdust , saving all the 
liquid manure, keeping the cows clean, and the stable odors down 
to a tolerable degree. This bedding breaks up the tenacity of the 
cow-manure, rendering it as easy to pulverize and manage as clear 
horse-manure. I would say it is just lovely to bed cows with dry 
basswood sawdust. This manure, if left in a large pile, will ferment 
and burn like horse-manure in about 10 days. Hence I draw it 
out as made where I desire to use it, leaving it in small heaps, con- 
venient to spread. 

" My pigs and calves are bedded with straw, and this is piled 
and rotted before using. 

" I use most of my manure on grass land, and mangels, some on 
corn and potatoes ; but it pays me best, when in proper condition, 
to apply all I do not need for mangels, on meadow and pasture. 

"Forty loads, or about 18 to 20 cords is a homoeopathic dose for 
an acre, and this quantity, or more, applied once in three years to 
grass land, agrees with it first rate. 



104 TALKS ON MANURES. 

" The land where I grow mangels gets about this dose every year. 

"I would say that my up-land meadows have been mown twice 
each year for a great many years. 

" I have been using refuse salt frdm Syracuse, on my mangels, 
at the rate of about six bushels per acre, applied broadcast in two 
applications. My hen-manure is pulverized, and sifted through a 
common coal sieve. The fine I use for dusting the mangels after 
they have been singled out, and the lumps, if any, are used to 
warm up the red peppers. 

" I have sometimes mixed my hen-manure with dry muck, in 
the proportion of one bushel of hen-manure to 10 of muck, and 
received a profit from it too big to tell of, on corn, and on mangels. 

"I have sprinkled the refuse salt on my cow-stable floors some- 
times, but where all the liquid is saved, I think we have salt enough 
for most crops. 

" I have abandoned the use of plaster on my pastures for the 
reason that milk produced on green-clover is not so good as that 
produced on the grasses proper. I use all the wood ashes I can get, 
on my mangels as a duster, and consider their value greater than 
the burners do who sell them to me for 15 cts. a bushel. I have 
never used much lime, and have not received the expected benefits 
from its use so far. But wood ashes agree with my land as well 
as manure does. The last question you ask, but one, is this: 
' What is the usual plan of managing manure in the dairy districts ? ' 
The usual method is to cut holes in the sides of the stable, about 
every ten feet along the whole length of the barn behind the cows, 
and pitch the manure out through these holes, under the eaves of 
the barn, where it remains until too much in the way, when it is 
drawn out and commonly applied to grass land in lumps as big as 
your head. This practice is getting out of fashion a little now, but 
nearly one-half of all tlie cow-manure made in Herkimer Co. is 
lost, wasted. 

" Your last question, ' What improvement would you suggest,' 
I answer by saying it is of no use to make any to these men, it 
would be wasted liketbeir manure. 

" The market value of manure in this county is 50 cts. per big 
load, or about one dollar per cord." 



" That is a capital letter," said the Deacon. " It is right to the 
point, and no nonsense about it." 

" He must make a good deal of manure," said the Doctor, 
"to be able to use 40 loads to the acre on his meadows and 



MANURE ON DAIRY-FARMS. 105 

pastures once in three years, and the same quantity every year on 
his field of mangel-wurzel." 

" That is precisely what I have been contending for," I replied ; 
" the dairymen can make large quantities of manure if they make an 
effort to do it, and their farms ought to be constantly improving. 
Two crops of hay on the same meadow, each year, will enable a 
farmer to keep a large herd of cows, and make a great quantity of 
manure — and when you have once got the manure, there is no dif- 
ficulty in keeping up and increasing the productiveness of the land." 

HOW TO MAKE MORE AND BETTER MANURE ON DAIRY 
FARMS. 

" You are right," said the Doctor, " in saying that there is no dif- 
ficulty in keeping up and increasing the productiveness of our dairy 
farms, when you have once got plenty of manure — but the difficulty 
is to get a good supply of manure to start with." 

This is true, and it is comparatively slow work to bring up a 
farm, unless you have plenty of capital and can buy all the artificial 
manure you want. By the free use of artificial manures, you could 
make a farm very productive in one or two years. But the slower 
and cheaper method will be the one adopted by most of our young 
and intelligent dairymen. Few of us are born with silver spoons 
in our mouths. We have to earn our money before we can spend it, 
and we are none the worse for the discipline. 

Suppose a young man has a farm of 100 acres, devoted principally 
to dairying. Some of the land lies on a creek or river, while other 
portions are higher and drier. In the spring of the year, a stream 
of water runs through a part of the farm from the adjoining hills 
down to the creek or river. The farm now supports ten head of 
cows, three horses, half a dozen sheep, and a few pigs. The land is 
worth $75 per acre, but does not pay the interest on half that sum. 
It is getting worse instead of better. Weeds are multiplying, and 
the more valuable grasses are dying out. What is to be done ? 

In the first place, let it be distinctly understood that the land is 
not exhausted. As I have before said, the productiveness of a farm 
does not depend so much on the absolute amount of plant-food 
which the soil contains, as on the amount of plant-food which is 
immediately available for the use of the plants. An acre of land 
that produces half a ton of hay, may contain as much plant-food 
as an acre that produces three tons of hay. In the one case the 
plant-food is locked up In such a form that the crops cannot absorb 
it, while in the other it is in an available condition. I have no 
^oubt there are fields on the farm I am alluding to, that contain 



106 TALKS ON MANURES. 

3,000 lbs. of nitrogen, and an equal amount of phosphoric 
acid, per acre, in the first six inches of the surface soil. This 
is as much nitrogen as is contained in 100 tons of meadov;- 
hay, and more phosphoric acid than is contained in 350 tons of 
meadow-hay. These are the two ingredients on which the fertility 
of our farms mainly depend. And yet there are soils containing 
this quantity of plant-food that do not produce more than half 
a ton of hay per acre. 

In some fields, or parts of fields, the land is wet and the plants 
cannot take up the food, even while an abundance of it is witliin 
reach. The remedy in this case is under-draining. On other 
fields, the plant-food is locked up in insoluble combinations. In 
this case we must plow up the soil, pulverize it, and expose it to the 
oxygen of the atmosphere. We must treat the soil as my mother 
used to tell me to treat my cofi'ee, when I complained that it was 
not sweet enough. " I put plenty of sugar in," she said, "and if 
you will stir it up, the cofi'ee will be sweeter." The sugar lay un- 
dissolved at the bottom of the cup ; and so it is with many of our 
Boils. There is plenty of plant-food in them, but it needs stirring 
up. They contain, it may be, 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen, and other 
plant-food in still greater proportion, and we are only getting a 
crop that contains 18 lbs. of nitrogen a year, and of this probably 
the rain supplies 9 lbs. Let us stir up the soil and see if 
we cannot set 100 lbs. of this 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen free, and 
get three tons of hay per acre instead of half a ton. There are 
men who own a large amount of valuable property in vacant city 
lots, who do not get enough from them to pay their taxes. If they 
would sell half of them, and put buildings on the other half, they 
might soon have a handsome income. And so it is with many 
farmers. They have the elements of 100 tons of hay lying dor- 
ment in every acre of their land, while they are content to receive 
half a ton a year. They have property enough, but it is unproduc 
tive, while they pay high taxes for the privilege of holding it, and 
high wages for the pleasure of boarding two or three hired men. 

We have, say, 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen locked up in each acre 
of our soil, and we get 8 or 10 lbs. every year in rain and 
dew, and yet, practically, all that we want, to make our farms 
highly productive, is 100 lbs. of nitrogen per acre per annum. 
And furthermore, it should be remembered, that to keep our farms 
rich, after we have once got them rich, it is not necessary to de- 
Telope this amount of nitrogen from the soil every year. In the 
case of clover-hay, the entire loss of nitrogen in the animal and in 
the milk would not exceed 15 per cent, so that, when we feed ou*» 



MANURE ON DAIRY-FARMS- 107 

100 lbs. of nitrogen, we have 85 lbs. left in the manure. We 
want to develope 100 lbs. of nitrogen in the soil, to enable us 
to raise a good crop to start with, and when this is once done, an 
annual development of 15 lbs. per acre in addition to the manure, 
would keep up the productiveness of the soil. Is it not worth 
while, therefore, to make an earnest effort to get started ? — to get 
100 lbs. of nitrogen in the most available condition in the soil ? 

As I said before, this is practically all that is needed to give us 
large crops. This amount of nitrogen represents about twelve tons 
of average barn-yard manure— that is to say, twelve tons contains 
100 lbs. of nitrogen. But in point of fact it is not in an imme- 
diately available condition. It would probably take at least two 
years before all the nitrogen it contains would be given up to the 
plants. We want, therefore, in order to give us a good start, 
24 tons of barn-yard manure on every acre of land. How to 
get this is the great problem which our young dairy farmer has to 
solve. In the grain-growing districts we get it in part by summer- 
fallowing, and I believe the dairyman might often do the same 
thing with advantage. A thorough summer-fallow would not 
only clean the land, but would render some of the latent plant- 
food available. This will be organized in the next crop, and when 
the dairyman has once got the plant-food, he has decidedly the 
advantage over the grain-growing farmer in his ability to retain it. 
He need not lose over 1& per cent a year of nitrogen, and not one 
per cent of the other elements of iiilant-food. 

The land lying on the borders of the creek could be greatly 
benefited by cutting surface ditches to let off the water; and later, 
probably it will be found that a few underdrains can be put in to 
advantage. These alluvial soils on the borders of creeks and rivers 
are grand sources of nitrogen and other plant-food. I do not know 
the fact, but it is quite probable that the meadows which Harris 
Lewis mows twice a year, are on the banks of the river, and are 
perhaps flooded in the spring. But, be this as it may, there is a 
field on the farm I am alluding to, lying on the creek, which now 
produces a bountiful growth of weeds, rushes, and coarse grasses, 
which I am sure could easily be made to produce great crops of 
hay. The creek overflows in the spring, and the water lies on 
some of the lower parts of the field until it is evaporated. A few 
ditches would allow all the water to pass off, and this alone would 
be a great improvement. If the field was flooded in May or June, 
and thoroughly cultivated and harrowed, the sod would be suffi- 
ciently rotted to plow again in August. Then a thorough harrow- 
ing, rolling, and cultivating, would make it as mellow as a garden, 



108 TALKS ON MANURES. 

and it could be seeded down with timothy and other good grasses 
the last of August, or beginning of September, and produce a good 
crop of hay the next year. Or, if thought better, it might bs sown 
to rye and seeded down with it. In either case the land would be 
greatly improved, and would be a productive meadow or pasture 
for years to come — or until our young dairyman could afford to 
give it one of Harris Lewis' " homoeopathic " doses of 40 loads of 
good manure per acre. He would then be able to cut two crops 
of hay a year — and such hay ! But we are anticipating. 

That stream which runs through the farm in the spring, and 
then dries up, could be made to irrigate several acres of the land 
adjoining. This would double, or treble, or quadruple, (" hold on," 
said the Deacon,) the crops of grass as far as the water reached. 
The Deacon does not seem to credit this statement ; but I have 
seen wonderful effects produced by such a plan. 

What I am endeavoring to show, is, that these and similar means 
will give us larger crops of hay and grass, and these in turn will 
enable us to keep more cows, and make more manure, and the 
manure will enable us to grow larger crops on other portions of 
the farm. 

I am aware that many will object to plowing up old grass land, 
and I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. If a farmer 
has a meadow that will produce two or three tons of hay, or support 
a cow, to the acre, it would be folly to break it up. It is already 
doing all, or nearly all, that can be asked or desired. But suppose 
you have a piece of naturally good land that does not produce a 
ton of hay per acre, or pasture a cow on three acres, if such land 
can be plowed without great diflaculty, I would break it up as 
early in the fall as possible, and summer-fallow it thoroughly, and 
seed it down again, heavily, with grass seeds the next August. If 
the land does not need draining, it will not forget this treatment 
for many years, and it will be the farmer's own fault if it ever runs 
down again. 

In this country, where wages are so high, we must raise large 
crops per acre, or not raise any. Where land is cheap, it may some- 
times pay to compel a cow to travel over three or four acres to get 
her food, but we cannot afford to raise our hay in half ton crops ; 
it costs too much to harvest them. High wages, hio;h taxes, and 
high-priced land, necessitate high farming ; and by high farming, I 
mean growing large crops every year, and on every portion of the 
farm ; but high wages and low-priced Icmd do not necessarily demand 
high farming. If the land is cheap we can suffer it to lie idle with- 
out much loss. But when we raise crops, whether on high-priced 



MANURE ON DAIRY-FARMS. 109 

land or on low-priced land, we must raise good crops, or the expense 
of cultivating and harvesting them will eat up all the profits. In 
the dairy districts, I believe land, in proportion to its quality and 
nearness to market, commands a higher price than land in the grain- 
growing districts. Hence it follows that high farming should be 
the aim of the American dairyman. 

I am told that there are farms in the dairy districts of this State 
worth from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, 
on which a cow to four acres for the year is considered a good 
average. At a meeting of the Little Falls Farmers' Club, the Hon. 
Josiah Shull, gave a statement of the receipts and expenses of his 
farm of 81i acres. The farm cost $130 per acre. He kept twenty 
cows, and fatted one for beef. The receipts were as follows : 

Twenty cows jielding 8,337 lbs. of cheese, at about 14i cents 

per pound $1,186.33 

Increase on beef cow 40 00 

Calves 45.0 

Total receipts $1,271.33 

EXPENSES. 

Boy, six months and board $180.00 

Man by the year, and board 360.00 

Carting milk and manufacturing cheese 215.00 

Total cost of labor $755.00 

THE OTHER EXPENSES WERE : 

Fertilizers, plants, etc $ 18.00 

Horse-shoeing and other repairs of fanning implements, (which 

is certainly pretty cheaj),) 50.00 

Wear and tear of implements 65.00 

Average repairs of place and buildings 175.00 

Average depreciation and interest on stock 180.00 

Insurance 4.00 

Incidentals, (also pretty low,) 50.00 

$620.00 

Total receipts $1,271.33. 

Total expenses 1,375.00. 

This statement, it is said, the Club considered a very fair estimate. 

Now, here is a farm costing $10,595, the receipts from which, 
saying nothing cbout interest, are less than the expenses. And if 
you add two cents per pound more to the price of the cheese, the 
profit would still be only about $50 per year. The trouble is not 
so mucli in the low price of cheese, as in the low product per acre. 
I know some grain-growing farmers who have done no better than 
this for a few years past. 

Mr. Shull places the annual depreciation and interest on stock at 
$180, equal to nearly one-seventh of the total receipts of the farm. 
It would pay the wages and board of another man for six months. 



110 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Can not it be avoided ? Good beef is relatively much higher in 
this State than good cheese. Some of the dairy authorities tell us 
that cheese is the cheapest animal food in the world, while beef is 
the dearest. Why, then, should our dairymen confine their atten- 
tion to the production of the cheapest of farm products, and neg- 
lect almost entirely the production of the dearest? If beef is high 
and cheese low, why not raise more beef ? On low-priced land it 
may be profitable to raise and keep cows solely for the production 
of cheese, and when the cows are no longer profitable for this pur- 
pose, to sacrifice them — to throw them aside as we do a worn-out 
machine. And in similar circumstances we may be able to keep 
sheep solely for their wool, but on high-priced land we can not 
afford to keep sheep merely for their wool. We must adopt a 
higher system of farming and feeding, and keep sheep that will 
give us wool, lambs, and mutton. In parrs of South America, 
where land costs nothing, cattle can be kept for their bones, tallow, 
and hides, but where food is costly we must make better use 
of it. A cow is a machine for converting vegetable food into veal, 
butter, Cheese, and beef. The first cost of the machine, if a good 
one, is considerable — say $100. This machine has to be kept run- 
ning night and day, summer and winter, week days and Sundays. 
If we were running a steam-flouring mill that could never be 
allowed to stop, we should be careful to lay in a good supply of 
coal and also have plenty of grain on hand to grind, so that the 
mill would never have to run empty. No sensible man would 
keep up steam merely to run the mill. He would want to grind 
all the time, and as much as possible ; and yet coal is a much 
cheaper source of power than the hay and corn with which we 
run our railk-producing machine. How often is the latter allowed 
to run empty ? The machine is running night and day — must run, 
but is it always running to advantage? Do we furnish fuel 
enough to enable it to do full work, or only little more than enough 
to run the machinery ? 

" What has all this to do with making manure on dairy farms? " 
asked the Deacon; "you are wandering from the point." 

"I hope not; lam trying to show that good feeding will pay 
better than poor feeding — and better food means better manure." 

I estimate that it takes from 15 to 18 lbs. of ordinary hay per 
day to run this cow-machine, which we have been talking about, 
even when kept warm and comfortable ; and if exposed to cold 
storms, probably not less than 20 lbs. of hay a day, or its 
equivalent, and this merely to keep the machine running, without 
doing any work. It requires this to keep the cow alive, and to pre- 



MANURE ON DAlKY-FARMS. IH 

vent her losing flesh. If not supplied with the requisite amount 
of food for this purpose, she will take enough fat and flesh from 
her own body to make up the deficiency; and if she cannot get it, 
the machine will stop — in other words, the cow will die. 

We have, then, a machine that costs say $100 ; that will last on 
an average eight years; that requires careful management; that 
must have constant watching, or it will be liable to get out of 
order, and that requires, merely to keep it running, say 20 lbs. 
of hay per day. Now, what do we get in return ? If we furnish 
only 20 lbs. of hay per day we gQi— nothing except manure. 
If we furnish 25 lbs. of hay per day, or its equivalent, we get, 
say half a pound of cheese per day. If we furnish 30 lbs. we 
get one pound of cheese per day, or 365 lbs. a year. We may 
not get the one pound of cheese every day in the year; sometimes 
the cow, instead of giving milk, is furnishing food for her embryo 
calf, or storing up fat and flesh ; and this fat and flesh will be used 
by and by to produce milk. But it all comes from the food eaten 
by the cow ; and is equal to one pound of cheese per day for 30 
lbs. of hay or its equivalent consumed; 20 lbs. of hay gives 
us nothing; 25 lbs. of hay gives us half a pound of cheese, or 
40 lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 30 lbs. gives us one 
pound, or 66|- lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 35 lbs. 
gives us 1^ lbs. , or 85*/7 lbs. of cheese to one ton of hay ; 40 
lbs. gives us 2 lbs. of cheese, or 100 lbs. of cheese from one ton 
of hay ; 45 lbs. gives us 2+ lbs. of cheese, or 111 lbs. of cheese 
from one ton of hay; 50 lbs. gives us 3 lbs. of cheese, or 120 lbs. of 
cheese from one ton of hay. 

On this basis, one ton of hay, in excess of tJie amount required to 
keep up the animal heat and sustain the vital functions, gives us 200 
lbs. of cheese. The point I wish to illustrate by these figures, 
which are of course hypothetical, is, that it is exceedingly desirable 
to get animals that will eat, digest, and assimilate a large amount of 
food, over and above that required to keep up the heat of the 
body and sustain the vital functions. When a cow eats only 25 
lbs. of hay a day, it requires one ton of hay to produce 40 
lbs. of cheese. But if we could induce her to eat, digest, and 
assimilate 50 lbs. a day, one ton would produce 120 lbs. of 
cheese. If a cow eats 33 lbs. of hay per day, or its equivalent 
in grass, it will require four acres of land, with a productive 
capacity equal to 1^ tons of hay per acre, to keep her a year. 
Such a cow, according to the figures given above, will produce 
401-i- lbs. of cheese a year, or its equivalent in growth A 
farm of 80 acres, on this basis, would support 20 cows, yielding. 



112 TALKS ON MANURES. 

say 8,000 lbs. of cheese. Increase the productive power cf the 
farm one half, (I hope the Deacon has not gone to sleep), and keep 
20 cows that will eat half as much again food, and we should then 
get 21,600 lbs. of cheese. If che«se is worth 15 cents per lb., 
a farm of 80 acres, producing 1^ tons of hay, or its equivalent, per 
acre, and supporting 20 cows, would give us a gross return of 
$1,204.50. The same farm so improved as to produce 2i tons of 
hay or its equivalent, per acre — fed to 20 cows capable of eating^ 
digesting, and assimilaUng ^^- would give a gross return of $3,240. 

In presenting these figures, I hope you will not think me a 
visionary. I do not think it is possible to get a cow to produce 
3 lbs. of cheese a day throughout the whole year. But I do 
think it quite possible to so breed and feed a cow that she will pro- 
duce 3 lbs. of cheese per day, or its equivalent in veal, flesh, 
or fat. We frequently have cows that produce 3 lbs. of 
cheese a day for several weeks ; and a cow can be so fed that she 
will produce 3 lbs. of cheese a day without losing weight. 
And if she can extract this amount of matter out of the food for a 
part of the year, why can not she do so for the whole year? Are the 
powers of digestion weaker in the fall and winter than in spring 
and summer? If not, we unquestionably sustain great loss by 
allowing this digestive power to run to waste. This digestive 
power costs us 20 lbs. of hay a day. We can ill afford to let it 
lie dormant. But the Deacon will tell me that the cows are 
allowed all the food they will eat, winter and summer. Then we 
must, if they have digestive power to spare, endeavor to persaude 
them to eat more. If they eat as much hay or grass as their 
stomachs are capable of holding, we must endeavor to give them 
richer hay or grass. Not one farmer in a thousand seems to appre- 
ciate the advantage of having hay or grass containing a high per- 
centage of nutriment. I have endeavored to show that a cow eat- 
ing six tons of hay, or its equivalent, in a year, would produce 400 
lbs. of cheese, worth $60. While a cow capable of eating, 
digesting, and turning to good account, nine tons of hay, or its 
equivalent, would produce 1,090 lbs. of cheese, or its equivalent 
in other products, worth $162. 

" I am sorry to interrupt the gentleman," said the Deacon with 
mock gravity, 

" Then pray don't," said I ; "I will not detain you long, and the 
subject is one which ought to interest you and every other farmer 
who keeps his cows on poor grass in summer, and coni-stalks and 
straw in winter." 

X was going to say, when the Deacon interrupted me, that the 



MANURE ON DAIRY-FARMS. 113 

Stomach of a cow may not allow her to eat nine tons of hay a year , 
bat it will allow her to eat six tons ; and if these six tons contain 
as much nutriment as the nine tons, what is the real difference in 
its value ? Ordinarily we should probably estimate the one at 
$10 per ton, and the other at $15. But according to the above 
figures, one is worth $10 per ton and the other $27. To get rich 
grass, therefore, should be the aim of the American dairyman. I 
hope the Deacon begins to see what connection this has with a 
large pile of rich manure. 

I do not mean merely a heavy growth of grass, but grass con- 
taining a high percentage of nutriment. Our long winters and 
heavy snows are a great advantage to us in this respect. Our 
grass in the spring, after its long rest, ought to start up like aspara- 
gus, and, under the organizing influence of our clear skies, and 
powerful sun, ought to be exceedingly nutritious. Comparatively 
few farmers, however, live up to their privileges in this respect. 
Our climate is better than our farming, the sun richer than our 
neglected soil. England may be able to produce more grass per 
acre in a year than we can, but we ought to produce richer grass, 
and, consequently, more cheese to a cow. And I believe, in fact, 
that such is often the case. The English dairyman has the advan- 
tage of a longer season of growth. We have a shorter season but 
a brighter sun, and if we do not have richer grass it is due to the 
want of draining, clean culture, and manuring. The object of 
American dairymen should be, not only to obtain more grass per 
acre, but to increase its nutriment in a given bulk. If we could 
increase it one-half, making six tons equal to nine tons, we have 
shown that it is nearly three times as valuable. Whether this can 
be done, I have not now time to consider ; but at any rate if your 
land produces as many weeds as do some fields on my farm, not 
to say the Deacon's, and if the plant-food that these weeds absorb, 
could be organized by nutritious grasses, this alone would do a 
good deal towards accomplishing the object. Whether this can be 
done or not, we want cows that can eat and turn to good account 
as much food per annum as is contained in nine tons of ordinary 
meadow-hay ; and we want this nutriment in a bulk not exceeding 
six tons of hay. If possible, we should get this amount of nutri- 
ment in grass or hay. But if we can not do this, we must feed 
enough concentrated food to bring it up to the desired standard. 



" But will it pay ? " asked the Deacon ; " I have not much faith 
in buying feed. A farmer ought to raise everything he feeds out. " 



114 TALKS ON MANURES. 

"As a rule, this may be true," I replied, "but there are many 
exceptions. I am trying to show that it will often pay a dairyman 
well to buy feed rich in nitrogen and phosphates, so as to malie 
rich manure, and give him a starL After he gets his land rich, 
there is little difficulty in keeping up its productiveness 

" Now, I have said — and the figuies, if anything, are too low — that 
if a cow, eating six tons of hay, or its equivalent, a year, produces 
400 lbs. of cheese, a cow capable of eating, digesting, and turning 
to good account nine tons of hay, or its equivalent, a year, would 
produce 1,090 lbs. of cheese, or its equivalent in other products." 

I would like to say much more on this subject, but I hope 
enough has been said to show that there is great advantage in 
feeding rich food, even so far as the production of milk or beef is 
concerned ; and if this is the case, then there is no difficulty iu 
making rich manure on a dairy-farm. 

And I am delighted to know that many farmers in the dairy 
districts are purchasing more and more bran and meal every year. 
Taking milk, and beef, and manure all into the account, I feel sure 
that it will be found highly profitable ; but you must have good 
cows — cows that can turn their extra food to good account. 

This is not the place to discuss the merits of the different breeds 
of cows. All I wish to show is, that to make better manure, we 
must use richer food ; and to feed this to advantage, we must have 
animals that can turn a large amount of food, over and above the 
amount required to sustain the vital functions, into milk, flesh, etc. 

" You do not think," said the Deacon, *' that a well-bred cow 
makes any richer manure than a common cow ? " 

Of course not ; but to make rich manure, we must feed well ; 
and we can not afford to feed well unless we have good animals. 

HOW TO SAVE AND APPLY MANURE ON A DAIRY-FARM. 

We can not go into details on this subject. The truth is, there 
are several good methods of saving manure, and which is best de- 
pends entirely on circumstances. The real point is to save the 
urine, and keep the cow-stable clean and sweet. There are three 
prominent methods adopted : 

1st. To throw all the liquid and solid excrements into a manure- 
cellar underneath the cow-stable. In this cellar, dry swamp- 
muck, dry earth, or other absorbent material, is mixed with the 
manure in sufficient quantity to keep down offensive odors. A 
little dry earth or muck is also used in the stable, scattering it 
twice a day in the gutters and under the hind legs of the cows. 
Where this is carried out, it has many and decided advantages. 



MANURE ON DAIRY-FARMS. 115 

2d. To wheel or throw out the solid parts of the manure, and 
to have a drain for carrying the liquid into a tank, where it can 
be pumped on to the heap of manure in the yard. Where many 
horses or sheep are kept, and only a few cows, this plan can often 
be used to advantage, as the heap of manure in the yard, consist- 
ing of horse-manure, sheep-manure, and a small porlion of cow- 
dung, will be able to absorb all the urine of the cows. 

3d. To use sufficient bedding to absorb all the urine in the sta- 
ble. In my own case, as I have said before, we usually chaff all 
our straw and stalks. The orts are used for bedding, and we also 
use a little dry earth— or, to be more exact, I use it wiien I attend 
to the matter myself, but have always found more or less trouble 
in getting the work done properly, unless I give it personal atten 
tion. To use " dirt'* to keep the stable clean, is- not a popular plan 
in this neighborhood. Where there is an abundance of straw, and 
especially if cut into chaff, the easiest way to keep the stable clean, 
and the cows comfortable, is to use enough of this chaffed straw 
to absorb all the liquid. Clean out the stable twice a day, and 
wheel the manure directly to the heap, and spread it. 



In regard to the application of manure on a dairy-farm, we have 
seen what Harris Lewis does with his. i also wrote to T. L. Har- 
ison, Esq., of St. Lawrence Co., N. Y. ; and knowing that he is 
not only a very intelligent farmer and breeder, but also one ot our 
best agricultural writers, 1 asked him if he had written anything 
on the subject of manures. 

"St. Lawrence Co.," said the Deacon, "produces capital grass, 
oats, and barley, but is, 1 should think, too far north for winter 
wheat; but what did Mr. Harison say ? "—Here is his letter: 

" I never wrote anything about manure. Catch me at it ! Kor 
do I know anything about the management ot barn-yard manure 
worth telling. My own practice is dictated quite as much by con- 
venience as by considerations of economy." 

" Good," said the Deacon ; " he writes like a sensible man." 

*' My rotation," he continues, "is such that the bulk of the ma. 
nnre made is applied to one crop ; that is, to my hoed crops, com, 
potatoes, and roots, in the second year. 

" The manure from the stables is thrown or wheeled out under 
the sheds adjoining, and as fast as it becomes so large a quantity 
as to be in the way, or whenever there is an opportunity, it is 
hauled out to the field, Miiere it is to be used, and put in large 
piles. It is turned once, if possible, in the spring, and then spread 



116 TALKS ON MANURES. 

"The quantity applied, is, as near as may be, 25 loads per acre; 
but as we use a great deal of straw, we haul out 30 loads, and es- 
timate that in the spring it will be about 25 loads. 

" If we have any more (and occasionally we have 100 loads over), 
we pile it near the barn, and turn it once or twice during the sum- 
mer, and use it as seems most profitable — sometimes to top-dress 
an old grass-field, that for some reason we prefer not to break for 
another year. Sometimes it goes on a piece of fall wheat, and 
sometimes is kept over for a barley field the following spring, and 
harrowed in just before sow'ing. 

" I should spread the manure as it comes from the sheds, instead 
of piling it, but the great quantity of snow we usually have, has 
always seemed to be an insuperable obstacle. It is an advantage 
to pile it, and to give it one turning, but, on the other hand, the 
piles made in cold weather freeze throtigh, and they take a pro- 
vokingly long time to thaw out in the spring. I never found ma- 
nure piled out of doors to get too much water from rain. 

" I have given up using gypsum, except a little in the stables, be- 
cause the clover grows too strong without it, and so long as this 
is the case, I do not need gypsum. But I sometimes have a piece 
of oats or barley that stands still, and looks sick, and a dose of 
gypsum helps it very much." 

" That is a fact worth remembering," said the Deacon. , 

"I use some superphosphate," continues Mr. Harison, "and 
some ground bones on my turnips. We also use superphosphate 
on oats, barley, and wheat (about 200 lbs. per acre), and find it 
pays. Last year, our estimate was, on 10 acres of oats, comparing 
with a strip in the middle, left for the purpose, that the 200 lbs. of 
superphosphate increased the crop 15 bushels per acre, and gave a 
gain in quality. It was the "Manhattan," w^hich has about-three per 
cent ammonia, and seven to eight per cent soluble phosphoric acid. 

" My rotation, which I stick to as close as I can, is: 1, oats; 2, 
corn, and potatoes, and roots ; 3, barley or spring wheat ; 4, 5, and 
6, grass (clover or timothy, with a little mixture occasionally). 

" I am trying to get to 4, fall wheat, but it is mighty risky." 



" That is a very sensible letter," said the Deacon ; " but it is evi- 
dent that he raises more grain than I supposed was generally the 
case in the dairy districts ; and the fact that his clover is so heavy 
that he does not need plaster, indicates that his land is rich." 

It merely confirms what I have said all along, and that is, that 
the dairymen, if they will feed their animals liberally, and culti- 



MANAGEMENT OF MANURES ON GRAIN-FARMS. 117 

vate their soil thoroughly, can soon have productive farms. There 
are very few of us in this section who can make maj;iure enough 
to give all our corn, potatoes, and roots, 25 loads of rotted manure 
per acre, and have some to spare. 

In the spring of 1877, Mr. Harison wrote : " I have been hauling 
out manure all winter as fast as made, and putting it on the land. 
At first we spread it ; but when deep snows came, we put it in 
small heaps. The field looks as if there had been a grain crop on 
it left uncut." 

" That last remark," said the Doctor, " indicates that the manure 
looks more like straw than well-rotted dung, and is an argument 
in favor of your plan of piling the manure in the yard or field, in- 
stead of spreading it on the land, or putting it in small heaps." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
MANAGEMENT OF MANURES ON GRAIN-FARMS. 

" I am surprised to find," said the Deacon, " that Mr. Harison, 
living as he does in the great grass and dairy district of this State, 
should raise so much grain. He has nearly as large a proportion 
of his land under the plow as some of the best wheat-growers of 
Western New York." 

This remark of the Deacon is right to the point. The truth is, 
that som^ of our best wheat-growers are plowing less land, and 
are raising more grass, and keeping more stock ; and some of the 
dairymen, though not keeping less stock, are plowing more land. 
The better farmers of both sections are approaching each other. 

At all events, it is certain that the wheat-growers will keep 
more stock. I wrote to the Hon. Geo. Geddes, of Onondaga Co., 
N. Y., well known as a large wheat-grower, and as a life-long ad- 
vocate of keeping up the fertility of our farms by growing clover. 
He replies as follows : 

^ " I regret that I have not time to give your letter the considera- 
tion it deserves. The subject you have undertaken is truly a dif- 
ficult one. The circumstances of a grain-raiser and a dairyman 
are so unlike, that their views in regard to the treatment of the 
manure produced on the farm would vary as greatly as the lines 
of farming they follow. 



118 TALKS ON MAl^URES. 

" The grain-grower has straw in excess ; he tries hard to get it 
into such form that he can draw it to his fields, and get it at work, 
at the least cost in labor. So he covers his barn-yards deep with 
straw, after each snow-storm, and g^tshis cattle, sheep, and horses, 
to trample it under foot ; and he makes his pigs convert all he can 
into such form that it will do to apply it to his pastures, etc., in 
winter or early spring. 

" A load of such manure is large, perhaps, but of no very great 
value, as compared with well-rotted stable-manure from grain-fed 
horses ; but it is as good as much that I have seen drawn from 
city stables, and carried far, to restore the worn-out hay-fields on 
the shores of the North River — in fact, quite like it. 

"The dairyman, generally, has but little straw, and his manure 
is mostly dung of cows, worth much more, per cord, than the 
straw-litter of the grain-growers. 

"The grain-grower will want no sheds for keeping off the rain, 
but, rather, he will desire more water than will fall on an open 
yard. The milkman will wish to protect his cow-dung from all 
rains, or even snows ; so he is a great advocate of manure-sheds. 
These two classes of farmers will adopt quite unlike methods of 
applying their manure to crops. 

" I have cited these two classes of farmers, simply to show the 
difllculty of making any universal laws in regard to the treatment 
and use of barn-yard manure. * * * 

" I think you and I are fully agreed in regard to the farm being 
the true source of the manure that is to make the land grow bet- 
ter with use, and still produce crops — perhaps you will go with 
me so far as to say, the greater the crops, the more manure they 
will make — and the more manure, the larger the crops. 

" Now, I object to any special farming, when applied to a whole 
great division of country, such as merely raising grain, or devoted 
entirely to dairying. 

"I saw at Rome, K Y., these two leading branches of New 
York farming united on the Huntington tract of 1,300 acres. 
Three or four farms (I forget which) had separate and distinct 
management, conducted by different families, but each had a dairy 
combined with the raising of large crops of grain, such as wheat, 
com, oats, etc. These grain-crops, with suitable areas of meadow 
and pasture, sustained the dairy, and the cows converted much of 
the grain, and all of the forage, into manure. Thus was com- 
bined, to mutual advantage, these two important branches of New 
York farming. Wheat and cheese to sell, and constant improve- 
ment in crops. 



MANAGEMENT OF MANURES ON GRAIN-FAKMS. 119 

" In our own case, sheep have been combined with grain- raising. 
So we have sold wool, wheat, and barley, and, in all my life, not 
five tons of hay. Clover, you know, has been our great forage- 
crop. We have wintered our sheep mostly on clover-hay, having 
some timothy mixed with it, that was necessarily cut (to make into 
hay with the medium, or early clover,) when it was but grass. We 
have fed such hay to our cows and horses, and have usually 
worked into manure the corn-stalks of about 20 acres of good 
corn, each winter, and we have worked all the straw into shape to 
apply as manure that we could, spreading it thickly on pastures 
and such other fields as were convenient. Some straw we have 
sold, mostly to paper-makers." 



"That," said the Deacon, "is good, old-fashioned farming. 
Plenty of straw for bedding, and good clover and timothy-hay for 
feed, with wool, wheat, and barley to sell. No talk about oil- 
cake, malt-combs, and mangels; nothing about superphosphate, 
guano, or swamp-muck." 

Mr. Geddes and Mr. Johnston are both representative farmers ; 
both are large wheat-growers; both keep their land clean and 
thoroughly cultivated ; both use gypsum freely ; both raise large 
crops of clover and timothy ; both keep sheep, and yet they rep- 
resent two entirely different systems of farming. One is the great 
advocate of clover ; the other is the great advocate of manure. 

I once wrote to Mr. Geddes, asking his opinion as to the best 
time to plow under clover for wheat. He replied as follows: 

"Plow under the clover w^hen it is at full growth. But your 
question can much better be answered at the end of a long, free 
talk, which can best be had here. I have many times asked you 
to come here, not to see fine farming, for w^e have none to show, 
but to see land that has been used to test the effects of clover for 
nearly 70 years. On the ground, I could talk to a willing auditor 
long, if not wisely. I am getting tired of being misunderstood, 
and of having my statements doubted when I talk about clover 
as the great renovator of land. You preach agricultural truth, 
and the facts you would gather in this neighborhood are worth 
your knowing, and worth giving to the world. So come here and 
gather some facts about clover. All that I shall try to prove to 
you is, that the fact that clover and plaster are by far the cheapest 
manures that can be had for our lands, has been demonstrated by 
many farmers beyond a doubt— so much cheaper than barn-yard 
manure that the mere loading of and spreading costs more than 



120 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

the plaster and clover. Do not quote me as saying this, but come 
and see the farms hereabouts, and talk with our farmers." 



Of course I went, and had a capital time. Mr. Geddes has a 
magnificent farm of about 400 acres, some four miles from 
Syracuse. It is in high condition, and is continually improving, 
and this is due to growing large and frequent crops of clover, and 
to good, deep plowing, and clean and iliorough culture. 

We drove round among the farmers. " Here is a man," said 
Mr. G., " who run in debt $45 per acre for his farm. He has edu- 
cated his family, paid off his debt, and reports his net profits at 
from $2,000 to $2,500 a year on a farm of 90 acres; and this is 
due to clover. You see he is building a new barn, and that does 
not look as though his land was running down under the system." 
The next farmer we came to was also putting up a new barn, and 
another farmer was enlarging an old one. " Now, these farmers 
have never paid a dollar for manure of any kind except plaster, 
and their lands certainly do not deteriorate." 



From Syracuse, I went to Geneva, to see our old friend John 
Johnston. "Why diJ you not tell me you were coming?" he 
said. " I would have met you at the cars. But I am right glad 
to see you. I want to show you my wheat, where I put on 250 
lbs. of guano per acre last fall. People here don't know that I 
used it, and you must not mention it. It is grand." 

I do not know that I ever saw a finer piece of wheat. It was the 
Diehl variety, sown 14tli September, at the rate of 1^ bushels per 
acre. It was quite thick enough. One breadth of the drill was 
sown at the rate of two bushels per acre. This is earlier. *' But," 
said Mr. J. , " the other will have larger heads, and will yield 
more." After examining the wheat, we went to look at the piles 
of muck and manure in the barn-yard, and from these to a splen- 
did crop of timothy. "It will go 2^ tons of hay per acre," said 
Mr, J., " and now look at this adjoining field. It is just as good 
land naturally, and there is merely a fence between, and yet the 
grass and clover are so poor as hardly to be worth cutting." 

" What makes the difi'erencc ? " I asked. 

Mr. Johnston, emphatically, " Manure." 

The poor field did not belong to him! 

Mr. Johnston's farm was originally a cold, wet, clayey soil. Mr. 
Geddes' land di 1 not need draining, or very little. Of course, land 
that needs draining, is richer after it is drained, than land that is 



MANAGEMENT OF MANURES ON GRAIN-FAKMS. 121 

naturally drained. And though Mr. Johnston was always a good 
farmer, yet he says he " never made money until he commenced to 
drain." The accumulated fertility in the land could then be made 
available by good tillage, and from that day to this, his land has 
been growing richer and richer. And, in fact, the same is true of 
Mr. Geddes' farm. It is richer land to-day than when first plowed, 
while there is one field that for seventy years has had no manure 
applied to it, except plaster. How is this to be explained ? Mr. 
Geddes would say it w^as due to clover and plaster. But this does 
not fully satisfy those who claim, (and truly), that " always taking 
out of the meal-tub and never putting in, soon comes to the bot- 
tom." The clover can add nothing to the land, that it did not get 
from the soil, except organic matter obtained from the atmosphere, 
and the plaster furnishes little or nothing except lime and sulphu- 
ric acid. There are all the other ingredients of plant-food to be 
accounted for — phosphoric acid, potash, soda, magnesia, etc. A 
crop of clover, or corn, or wheat, or barley, or oats, will not come 
to perfection unless every one of these elements is present in the 
soil in an available condition. Mr. Geddes has not furnished a 
single ounce of any one of them. 

" Where do they come from ? " 

I answer, from the soil itself. There is probably enough of these 
elements in the soil to last ten thousand years ; and if we return to 
the soil all the straw, chaff, and bran, and sell nothing but fine flour, 
meat, butter, etc., taere is probably enough to last a million years, 
and you and I need not trouble ourselves with speculations as to 
what will happen after that time. Nearly all our soils are practi- 
cally inexhaustible. But of course these elements are not in an 
available condition. If they were, the rains would wash them all 
into the ocean. They are rendered available by a kind of fermen- 
tation. A manure-heap packed as hard and solid as a rock would 
not decay ; but break it up, make it fine, turn it occasionally so as 
to expose it to the atmosphere, and with the proper degree of mois- 
ture and heat it will ferment rapidly, and all its elements will 
soon become available food for plants. Nothing has been created 
by the process. It was all there. We have simply made it availa- 
ble. So it is with the soil. Break it up, make it fine, turn it 
occasionally, expose it to the atmosphere, and the elements it con- 
tains become available. 

I do not think that Mr. Geddes' land is any better, naturally, 

than yours or mine. We can all raise fair crops by cultivating 

the land thoroughly, and by never allowing a weed to grow. On 

Mr. Lawes' experimental wheat-field, the plot that has never re- 

6 



122 TALKS ON MANUIiES. 

ceived a particle of manure, produces e'cery year an average of 
about 15 bushels per acre. And the whole crop is removed — grain, 
straw, and chaff. Nothing is returned. And that the land is not 
remarkably rich, is evident from^the fact that some of the farms in 
the neighborhood, produce, under the ordinary system of manage- 
ment, but little more wheat, once in four or five years than is 
raised emry year on this experimental plot without any manure. 

"Why? Because these farmers do not half work their land, and 
the manure they make is little better than rotten straw. Mr. Lawes' 
wheat-field is plowed twice every year, and when I was there, the 
crop was hand-hoed two or three times in the spring. Not a weed 
is suffered to grow. And this is all there is to it. 

Now, of course, instead of raising 15 bushels of wheat every year, 
it is a good deal better to raise a crop of 30 bushels every other 
year, and still better to raise 45 bushels every third year. And it 
is here that clover comes to our aid. It will enable us to do this 
very thing, and the land runs no greater risk of exhaustion than 
Mr. Lawes' unmanured wheat crop. 



Mr. Geddes and I do not differ as much as you suppose. In fact, 
I do not believe that we differ at all. He has for years been an 
earnest advocate for growing clover as a renovating crop. He 
thinks it by far the cheapest manure that can be obtained in this 
section. I agree with him most fully in all these particulars. He 
formed his opinion from experience and observation. I derived 
mine from the Rothamsted experiments. And the more I see of 
practical farming, the more am I satisfied of their truth. Clover 
is, unquestionably, the great renovating crop of American agricul- 
ture. A crop of clover, equal to two to:3S of hay, when plowed 
under, will furnish more ammonia to the soil than twenty tons of 
straw-made manure, drawn out fresh and wet in the spring, or 
than twelve tons of our ordinary barn-yard manure. No wonder 
Mr. Geddes and other intelligent farmers recommend plowing 
under clover as manure. I differ from them in no respect except 
this : that it is not absolutely essential to plow clover under in the 
green state in order to get its fertilizing effect ; but, if made into 
hay, and this hay is fed to animals, and all the manure carefully 
saved, and returned to the land, there need be comparatively little 
loss. The animals will seldom take out more than from five to 
ten per cent of all the nitrogen furnished in the food— and less still 
of mineral matter. I advocate growing all the clover you possibly 
can— so does Mr. Geddes. He says, plow it under for manure. So 
say I — unless you can make more from feeding out the clover-hay. 



MANAGEMENT OF MANUEES ON GRAIN-FAKMS. 123 

than will pay you for waiting a year, and for cutting and curing 
the clover and drawing back the manure. If you plow it 
under, you are sure of it. There is no loss. In feeding it out. 
you may lose more or less from leaching, and injurious fermenta- 
tion. But, of course, you need not lose anything, except the little 
that is retained in the flesh, or wool, or milk, of the animals. As 
things are on many farms, it is perhaps best to plow under the 
clover for manure at once. As things ought to be, it is a most 
wasteful practice. If you know how to feed out the hay to advan- 
tage, and take pains to save the manure (and to add to its value by 
feeding oil-cake, bran, etc., with it), it is far better to mow your 
clover, once for hay, and once for seed, than to plow it under. 
Buy oil-cake and bran with the money got from the seed, and 
growing clover-seed will not injure the land. 



I am glad to hear that Mr. Geddes occasionally sells straw. I 
once sold 15 tons of straw to the paper-makers for $150, they 
drawing it themselves, and some of my neighbors criticised me 
severely for doing so. It is not considered an orthodox practice. 
I do not advocate selling straw as a rule ; but, if you have more 
than you can use to advantage, and it is bringing a good price, 
sell part of the straw and buy bran, oil-cake, etc., with the money. 
To feed nothing but straw to stock is poor economy ; and to rot 
it down for manure is no better. Straw itself is not worth $3.00 
a ton for manure ; and as one ton of straw, spread in an open 
yard to rot, will make, in spring, about four tons of so-called 
manure, and if it costs 50 cents a ton to draw out and spread it, 
the straw, even at this comparatively high estimate of its value] 
nets you, when fed out alone, or rotted down, only $1.00 a ton.' 

I had about 30 tons of straw. Fed out alone or rotted down it 
would make 120 tons of manure. After deducting the expense of 
hauling, and spreading, it nets me on the land, $30. Now sell 
half the straw for $150, and buy three tons of oil-cake to feed 
out with the other half, and you would have about seventy tons of 
manure. The manure from, the fifteen tons of straw is worth, say 
$45, and from the three tons of oil-cake, $60, or $105. It 'will 
cost $35 to draw and spread it, and will thus net on the land, $70. 
So far as the manure question is concerned, therefore, it is far 
better to sell half your straw, and buy oil-cake with the money, 
than to feed it out alone— and I think it is also far better for the 
stock. Of course, it would be bett* for the farm, not to sell any 
of the straw, and to buy six tons of oil-cake to feed out with it; 



124 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

but those of us who are short of capital, must be content to bring 
up our land by slow degrees. 

" 1 am at a loss to understand," wrote Mr, Geddes, " what you 
mean, when you say that a ton of straw will make, in the spring 
of the year, four tons of so-called manure. If you had said that 
four tons of straw would make one ton of manure, I should have 
thought nothing of it. But how you can turn one ton of straw 
into four tons of anything that anybody will call manure, I do 
not see. In a conversation I had with Hon. Lewis F. Allen, of 
Black Rock, more than a year ago, he told me that he had enquired 
of the man who furnished hay for feeding cattle at the Central 
Yards, in Buffalo, as to the loads of manure he sold, and though I 
can not now say the exact quantity to a ton of hay, I remember 
that it was very little — far less than I had before supposed. Please 
explain this straw-manure matter." 

Boussingault, the great French chemist-farmer, repeatedly ana- 
lyzed the manure from his barn-yard. " The animals which had 
produced this dung, were 30 horses, 30 oxen, and from 10 to 20 
pigs. The absolute quantity of moisture was ascertained, by first 
drying in the air a considerable weight of dung, and after pound- 
ing, continuing and completing, the drying of a given quantity." 
No one can doubt the accuracy of the results. The dung made 
in the 

Winter of 1837-8, contained 79.6 per cent of water. 

" " 1838-9, " 77.8 " " " " 

Autumn " 1839, " 80.4 " " '' " 

Fresh solid cow-dung contains, according to the same authority, 
90 per cent of water. 

I have frequently seen manure drawn out in the spring, that 
had not been decomposed at all, and with more or less snow 
among it, and with water dripping from the wagon, while it was 
being loaded. It was, in fact, straw saturated with water, and dis- 
colored by the droppings of animals. Now, how much of such 
manure would a ton of dry straw make ? If we should take 20 
lbs. of straw, trample it down, and from time to time sprinkle it 
with water and snow, until we had got on 80 lbs., and then put 
on 20 lbs. more straw, and 80 lbs. more water, and keep on until 
we had used up a ton of straw, how much " so-called manure," 
should we have to draw out ? 

20 lbs. of straw, and 80 lbs. water=100 lbs. so-called manure. 
2,000 lbs. of straw, and 8,000 lbs. water=10,000 lbs. so-called manure. 

In other words, we get five tons of such manure from one ton of 



MANAGEMENT OP MANURES ON GRAIN-FARMS. 125 

Straw. This is, perhaps, an extreme case, but there can be little 
doubt, that a ton of straw, trampled down by cattle, and sheep, in 
an open barn-yard, exposed to snow and rain, would weigh four 
tons when drawn out wet in the spring. 



Yes, it is quite an argument in favor of manure cellars. I have 
always had a prejudice against them — probably, because the first 
one I saw was badly managed. There is, however, no necessity, 
even in an ordinary open barn-yard, with more or less sheds and 
stables, of having so much water in the manure when drawn out. 
The real point of my remarks, which so surprised Mr. Geddes, 
was this : We have to draw out so much water with our manure, 
under any circumstances, that we should try to have it as rich as 
possible. It is certainly true, that, if the manure from a ton of 
straw is worth $3, that from a ton of clover-hay, is worth $10. 
And it costs no more to draw out and spread the one than the 
other. I have never yet found a farmer who would believe that 
a ton of clover-hay, rotted down in the barn-yard, would make 
three or four tons of manure ; but he would readily assent to the 
proposition, that it took four or five tons of green-clover to make a 
ton of hay ; and that if these four or five tons of green-clover were 
rotted in the yard, it would make three or four tons of manure. 
And yet, the onl}^ difierence between the green-clover and the hay, 
is, that the latter has lost some 60 or 70 per cent of water in cur- 
ing. Add that amount of water to the hay, and it will make as 
much manure as the green-clover from which the hay was made. 

GYPSUM AND CLOVER AS MANURE. 

A good farmer came in while we were talking. " Nothing like 
plaster and clover," he said, " for keeping Up a wheat-farm." And 
you will find this the general opinion of nearly all American 
wheat-growers. It must be accepted as a fact. But the deduc- 
tions drawn from the fact are as various as they are numerous. 

Let us look first at the fact. And, If you like, we will take my 
own farm as an example. About 60 years ago, it was covered with 
the primeval forest. The trees, on the higher and drier land, were 
first cut down, and many of them burnt on the land. Wheat was 
sown among the stumps. The crop varied in different years, from 
10 to 30 bushels per acre. When 30 bushels were grown, the fact 
was remembered. When 10 bushels only were grown, little was said 
about it in after years, until now there is a general impression 
that our wheat crops were formerly much larger per acre than 
now. I doubt it ; but we will not discuss the point. One thing is 



126 TALKS ON MANURES. 

certain, the land would produce good crops of clover ; and when 
this clover was plowed under for manure, we got better crops of 
wheat afterwards. This was the rule. Later, we commenced to 
use gypsum as a top-dressing' on clover. The effect was often 
wonderful. Farmers will tell you that they sowed 200 lbs. of 
plaster per acre, on their young clover, in the spring, and it 
doubled the crop. This statement expresses an agricultural, and not 
an arithmetical fact. We do not know that the crop on the plas- 
tered portion was twice as heavy as on the unplastered. We know 
that it was larger, and more luxuriant. There was a greater, and 
more vigorous growth. And this extra growth was caused by the 
small top-dressing of powdered gypsum rock. It was a great fact 
in agriculture. I will call it fact, No. 1. 

Then, when the clover was turned under, we usually got good 
wheat. This is fact, No. 2. On these two facts, hang many of 
our agricultural theories. We may state these facts in many ways. 
Still, it all comes to this : Clover is good for wheat ; plaster is good 
for clover. 

There is another fact, which is a matter of general observation 
and remark. You rarely find a good farmer who does not pay 
special attention to his clover-crop. When I was riding with Mr. 
Geddes, among the farmers of Onondaga County, on passing a 
farm where everything looked thrifty — good fences, good build- 
ings, good garden, good stock, and the land clean and in good con- 
dition — I would ask who lived there, or some other question. No 
matter what. The answer was always the same. * ' Oh ! he is 
another of our clover men." We will call this fact. No. 3. 

And when, a year afterwards, Mr. Geddes returned my visit, 
and I drove him around among the farmers of Monroe County, he 
found precisely the same state of facts. All our good farmers 
were clover men. * Among the good wheat-growers in Michigan, 
you will find the same state of things. 

These are the facts. Let us not quarrel over them. 



CHEAPEST MANURE FOR FARMERS. 127 

CHAPTEK XXIV. 
THE CHEAPEST MANURE A FARMER CAN USE. 

I do not know who first said, " The cheapest manure a farmer 
can use is — clover-seed," but the saying has become part of our 
a^srricultural literature, and deserves a passing remark. 

I huve heard good farmers in Western New York sa}^, that if 
they had a field sown w^ith wheat that they were going to plow 
the spring after the crop was harvested, they would sow 10 lbs. of 
clover-seed on the wheat in the spring. They thought that the 
growth of the clover in the fall, after the wheat was cut, and the 
growth the next spring, before the land was plowed, would afford 
manure worth much more than the cost of the clover-seed. 

" I do not doubt it," said the Deacon ; " but would it not be 
better to let the crop grow a few months longer, and then plow 
it under ? " 

"But that is not the point," I remarked; "we sometimes adopt 
a rotation when Indian-corn follows a crop of wheat. In such a 
case, good farmers sometimes plow the land in the fall, and again 
the next spring, and then plant corn. This is one method. But I 
have known, as I said before, good farmers to seed down the 
wheat with clover ; and the following spring, say the third week 
in May, plow under the young clover, and plant immediately on 
the furrow. If the land is warm, and in good condition, you will 
frequently get clover, by this time, a foot high, and will have two 
or three tons of succulent vegetation to turn under; and 
the farmer who first recommended the practice to me, said 
that the cut-worms were so fond of this green-clover that 
they did not molest the young corn-plants. I once tried the plan 
myself, and found it to work well; but since then, I have kept so 
many pigs and sheep, that clover has been too useful to plow un- 
der. But we will not discuss this point at present. 

" What I wanted to say is this : Here w^e have a field in wheat. 
Half of it (A) we seed down with 12 lbs. of clover-seed per acre •,. 
the other half (B) not. The clover-seed and sowing on A, cost, say,, 
$2 per acre. We plow B m the fall ; this will cost us about as 
much as the clover-seed sown on A. In the spring, A and B are 
both plowed and planted to corn. Now, which hnlf of the field 
will be in the cleanest and best condition, and which will produce 
the best corn, and the best barley, or oats, afterwards?'* 



128 TALKS OX MANURES. 

" I vote for A," said the Deacon. 

" I vote for A," said tlie Doctor. 

" I vote for A," said tlie Squire. 

" I slicmld tliink," modestly Suggested Cliarley, " ttiat it would 
depend somewhat on the soil," and Charley is right. On a clean, 
moderately rich piece of light, sandy soil, I should certainly ex- 
pect much better corn, and better barley or oats, on A, where the 
clover was grown, than on B. But if the field was a strong loam, 
that needed thorough cultivation to get it mellow enough for corn, 
I am inclined to think that B would come out ahead. At any 
rate, I am sure that on my own farm, moderately stiff land, if I 
was going to plant corn after wheat, I should not seed it down 
with clover. I would plow the wheat-stubble immediately after 
harvest, and harrow and cultivate it to kill the weeds, and then, 
six weeks or two months later, I would plow it again. I would 
draw out manure in the winter, pile it up in the field to ferment, 
and the next spring spread it, and plow it under, and then — 

"And then what ?" asked the Deacon. — " Why the truth is," 
said I, " then I would not plant corn at all. I should either sow 
the field to barley, or drill in mangel-wurzel or Swede-turnips. 
But if I d'd plant corn, I should expect better corn than if I had 
sown clover with the wheat; and the land, if the corn was well 
cultivated, would be remarkably clean, and in fine condition ; and 
the next time the land w^as seeded dow^n with clover, w^e could 
reasonably expect a great crop." 

The truth is, that clover-seed is sometimes a very cheap manure, 
and farmers are in no danger of sowing too much of it. I do not 
mean sowing too much seed per acre, but they are in no danger of 
sowing too many acres with clover. On this point, there is no 
difference of opinion. It is only when we come to explain the 
action of clover — w^hen w^e draw deductions from the facts of the 
the case — that we enter a field bristling all over with controversy. 



" You have just finished threshing," said the Deacon, " and for 
my part, I would rather hear how your wheat turned out, than to 
listen to any of your chemical talk about nitrogen, phosphoric 
acid, and potash." 

" The wheat," said I, " turned out full as well as I expected. 
Fourteen acres of it was after wheat, and eight acres of it after 
oats. Both these fields were seeded down with clover last year, 
but the clover failed, and there was nothing to be done but to risk 
them again with wheat. The remainder was after barley. In all, 



CHEAPEST MANURE FOR FARMERS. 129 

there was not quite 40 acres, and we had 954 bushels of Diehl 
wheat. This is not bad in the circumstances ; but I shall not 
be content until I can average, taking one year with another, 35 
to 40 bushels per acre. If the land had been rich enough, there 
would unquestionably have been 40 bushels per acre this year. 
That is to say, the season was quite capable of producing this 
amount ; and I think the mechancial condition of the land was 
also equal to it ; all that was needed was sufficient available plant- 
food in the soil." 

*' I can see no reason," said the Doctor, " why you may not av- 
erage 40 bushels of wheat per acre in a good season." 

" The field of 14 acres," said I, " where wheat followed wheat, 
yielded 23 bushels per acre. Last year it yielded 22 bushels per 
acre ; and so we got in the two years 45 bushels per acre." 

This field has had no manure of any kind for years. In fact, 
since the land was cleared, 40 or 50 years ago, I presume that all 
the manure that has been applied would not, in the aggregate, 
be equal to more than a good crop of clover-hay. The available 
plant-food required to produce these two crops of wheat came 
from the soil itself, and from the rain, dews, and atmosphere. The 
land is now seeded down with clover, and with the aid of a bushel 
or two of plaster per acre, next spring, it is not improbable that, 
if mown twice for hay next year, it will yield in the two crops 
three tons of hay per acre. 

Now, three tons of clover-hay contain about 33 lbs. of phos- 
phoric acid, 90 lbs. of potash, and 150 lbs. of nitrogen. 

The last crop of wheat, of 22 bushels per acre, and say 1,500 
lbs. of straw, would contain : 

I/i the grain. In iJie straw. In total crop. 

Phosphoric acid Hi lbs. Sf lbs. 15i lbs. 

Potash (A " 91 " IGi " 

Nitrogen 23 " 9i " 32i '' 

It seems very unkind in the wheat-plants not to give me more 
than 22 bushels per acre, when the clover-plants coming after will 
find phosphoric acid enough for 40 bushels of wheat, and potash 
and nitrogen enough for nearly 100 bushels of wheat per acre. 
And these are the three important constituents of plant-food. 

Why, then, did I get only 22 bushels of wheat per acre? I got 
23 bushels on the same land the year previous, and it is not 
improbable that if I had sowm the same land to wheat again this 
fall, I should get 12 or 15 bushels per acre again next year. But 
the clover will find plant-food enough for 40 bushels of wheat. 

" There is not much doubt," said the Deacon, " that you wiU 



130 TALKS ON MANURES. 

get a good crop of clover, if you will keep the sheep off of the land 
this fall. But I do not see what you mean by the clover-plants 
finding food enough for 40 bushels of wheat, while in point of 
fact, if you had sown the field again to wheat this fall, you would 
not, as you say, probably get more than 12 or 15 bushels of wheat. 

" He means this," said the Doctor. " If he had sown the laud 
to wheat Ihis fall, without manure, he would probably not get 
over 15 bushels of wheat per acre, and yet you both agree that the 
land will, in all probability, produce next year, if mown twice, 
three tons of clover-hay per acre, without any manure. 

" Now, if we admit that the clover gets no more nitrogen from 
the rain and dews, and from the atmosphere, than the wheat will 
get, then it follows that this soil, which will only produce 15 bush- 
els of wheat per acre, does, in point of fact, contain plant-food 
enough for 40 bushels of wheat, and the usual proportion of straw. 

" The two crops take up from the soil as follows : 

Phosphoric acid. Potash. Nitrogen. 

15 bushels wheat and straw 10^ lbs. Hi lbs. 22 lbs. 

3 tons clover-hay 33 '' 90 '' 150 " 

" These facts and figures," continued the Doctor, " are worth 
looking at and thinking about. Why can not the wheat get as 
much phosphoric acid out of the soil as the clover ? " 

"Because," said the Deacon, "the roots of the clover go down 
deeper into the subsoil than the roots of wheat." 

" That is a very good reason, so far as it goes," said I, " but 
does not include all the facts. I have no sort of doubt, that if I 
had sown this land to wheat, and put on 75 lbs. of nitrogen per 
acre, I should have got a wheat-crop containing, in grain and 
straw, 30 lbs. of phosphoric acid. And so the reason I got 15 
bushels of wheat per acre, instead of 40 bushels, is not because 
the roots of wheat do not go deep enough to find sufiicient soluble 
phosphoric acid." 

" Possibly," said the Doctor, " the nitrogen you apply may ren> 
der the phosphoric acid in the soil more soluble." 

" That is true," said I ; " and this was the answer Liebig gave to 
Mr. Lawes. Of which more at some future time. But this an- 
swer, like the Deacon's, does not cover all the facts of the case ; 
for a supply of soluble phosphoric acid would not, in all proba- 
bility, give me a large crop of wheat. I will give you some facts 
presently bearing on this point. 

" What we want to find out is, why the clover can get so much 
more phosphoric acid, potash, and nitrogen, than the wheat, from 
the same soil ?" 



CHEAPEST MANURE FOR FARMERS. 131 

MORE ABOUT CLOVER. 

The Deacon seemed to think the Doctor was going to give a 
scientific answer to the question. " If the clover can get more ni- 
trogen, phosphoric acid, and potasli, from the same soil than 
wheat," said he, " why not accept the fact, and act accordingly ? 
You scientific gentlemen want to explain everything, and some- 
times make confusion worse confounded. We know that a sheep 
will grow fat in a pasture where a cow would starve." 

" True," said the Doctor, " and that is because the cow gathers 
food with her tongue, and must have the grass long enough for 
her to get hold of it ; while a sheep picks up the grass with her 
teeth and gums, and, consequently, the sheep can eat the grass 
down into the very ground." 

" Very well," said the Deacon • " and how do you know but that 
the roots of the clover gather up their food sheep-fashion, while 
the wheat-roots eat like a cow ? " 

" That is not a very scientific way of putting it," said the Doc- 
tor; "but I am inclined to think the Deacon has the right idea." 

"Perhaps, then," said I, "we had better let it go at that until we 
get more light on the subject. We must conclude that the wheat 
can not get food enough from the soil to yield a maximum crop, 
not because there is not food enough in the field, but the roots of 
the wheat are so constituted that they can not gather it up ; while 
clover-roots, foraging in the same soil, can find all they want." 

" Clover," said the Deacon, " is the scavenger of the farm ; like 
a pig, it gathers up what would otherwise be wasted." 

" Of course, these illustrations," said the Doctor, " do not give 
us any clear idea of how the clover-plants take up food. We must 
recollect that the roots of plants take up their food in solution ; 
and it has just occurred to me that, possibly, Mr. Lawes' experi- 
ments on the amount of water given oflf by plants during their 
growth, may throw some light on the subject we are discussing." 

"Mr. Lawes found," continued the Doctor, " that a wheat-plant, 
from March 19 to June 28, or 101 days, evaporated through its 
leaves, etc. , 45,713 grains of water ; while a clover-plant, standing 
alongside, and in precisely similar condition, evaporated 55,093 
grains. The clover was cut June 28, when in full bloom. The 
wheat-plant was allowed to grow until ripe, S?pt. 7. From June 28 
to Sept. 7, or 72 days, the wheat-plant evaporated 67,814 grains." 

" One moment," said the Deacon ; " as I understand, the clover- 
plant evaporated more water than the wheat-plant, until the 28th 
of June, but that during the next 71 days, the wheat-plant evap- 
orated more water than it had during the previous 101 days." 



132 TALKS ON MA^rURES. 

** Yes," said I, " and if these facts prove nothing else, they at 
least show that there is a great difference between wheat and 
clover. I was at Rothamsted when these experiments were 
made. During the first nine days of the experiment, the clover- 
plant evaporated 399.6 grains of water ; while the wheat-plaut, 
standing alongside, evaporated only 128.7 grains. In other words, 
the clover-plant evaporated three times as much water as the 
wheat-plant. During the next 31 days, the wheat-plant evap- 
orated 1,267.8 grains, and the clover-plant 1,643.0 grains ; but dur- 
ing the next 27 days, from April 38 to May 25, the wheat-plant 
evaporated 162.4 grains of water per day, while the clover-plant 
only evaporated 109.2 grains per day. During the next 34 days, 
from May 25 to June 28, the wheat-plant evaporated 1,177.4 grains 
per day, and the clover-plant 1,473.5 grains per day." 

"In June," said the Deacon, "the clover evaporates ten times 
as much water per day as it did in May, How much water would 
an acre of clover evaporate ? " 

" Let Charley figure it out," said the Doctor. " Suppose each 
plant occupies 10 square inches of land; there are 6,272,640 square 
inches in an acre, and, consequently, there would be 627,264 
clover-plants on an acre. Each plant evaporated 1,473.5 grains 
per day, and there are 7,000 grains in a pound." 

Charley made the calculation, and found that an acre of clover, 
from May 25 to June 28, evaporated 528,598 lbs. of water, or 15,- 
547 lbs. per day. 

A much more accurate way of ascertaining how much water an 
acre of clover evaporates is afforded us by these experiments. 
After the plants were cut, they were weighed and analyzed ; and 
it being known exactly how much water each plant had given off 
during its growth, we have all the facts necessary to tell us just 
how much a crop of a given weight would evaporate. In brief, it 
was found that for each pound of dry substance in the wheat- 
plant, 247.4 lbs. of water had been evaporated; and for each 
pound in the clover- plant, 269.1 lbs. 

An acre of wheat of 15 bushels per acre of grain, and an equal 
weight of straw, would exhale during the spring and summer 
177f tons of water, or calculated on 172 days, the duration of the 
experiment, 2,055 lbs. per day. 

An acre of clover that would make two tons of hay, would 
pass off through its leaves, in 101 days, 430 tons of water, or 8,600 
lbs, per day— more than four times as much as the wheat. 

These figures show that, from an agricultural point of view, 
there is a great difference between wheat and clover ; and yet I 



CHEAPEST MANURE FOR FARMERS. 133 

tnink the figures do not show the whole of the difference. The 
clover was cut just at the time when the wheat-plant was 
enterinf^ on its period of most rapid growth and exhalation, and, 
consequently, the figures given above probably exaggerate the 
amount of water given off by tne wheat during the early part of 
the season. It is, at any rate, quite clear, and this is all I want to 
show, that an acre of good clover exhales a much larger amount 
of water from spring to hay-harvest than an acre of wheat. 

" And what," said the Deacon, who was evidently getting tired 
of the figures, " does all this prove ? " 

The figures prove that clover can drink a much greater quantity 
of water during March, April, May, and June, than wheat; and, 
consequently, to get the same amount of food, it is not necessary 
that the clover should have as much nitrogen, phosphoric acid, 
potash, etc., in the water as the wheat-plant requires. I do not 
know that I make myself understood." 

"You want to show," said the Dcaco'], " that the wheat-plant 
requires richer food than clover." 

Yes, I want to show that, though clover requires more food per 
day than wheat, yet the clover can drink such a large amount of 
water, that it is not necessary to make the "sap of the soil" so 
rich in nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, for clover, as it is 
for wheat. I think this tells the whole story. 

Clover is, or may be, the grandest renovating and enriching 
crop commonly grown on our farms. It owes its great value, not 
to any power it may or may not possess of getting nitrogen from 
the atmosphere, or phosphoric acid and potash from the subsoil, 
but pilncipally, if not entirely, to the fact that the roots can drink 
up such a large amount of water, and live and thrive on very 
weak food. 

HOW TO MAKE A FARM EICH BY GROWING CLOVER. 

Not by growing the clover, and selling it. Nothing would ex- 
haust the land, so rapidly as such a practice. We must either plow 
under the clover, let it rot on the surface, or pasture it, or use it 
for soiling, or make it into hay, feed it out to stock, and return the 
manure to the land. If clover got its nitrogen from the atmos- 
phere, we might sell the clover, and depend on the roots left in the 
ground, to enrich the soil for the next crop. But if, as I have en- 
deavored to show, clover gets its nitrogen from a weak solution in 
the soil, it is clear, that though for a year or two we might raise 
good crops from the plant-food left in the clover-roots, yet we 



134 TALKS ON MANURES. 

should soon find that ,2:rowing a crop of clover, and leavmg only 
the roots in the soil, is no way to permanently enrich land. 

I do not say that such a practice will " exhaust" the land. For- 
tunately, while it is an easy mafter to impoverish land, we should 
have to call in the aid of the most advanced agricultural science, 
before we could "exhaust'' land of its plant-food. The free use of 
Nitrate of Soda, or Sulphate of Ammonia, might enable us to do 
something in the way of exhausting our farms, but i^, would reduce 
our balance at a bank, or send us to the poor-house, before we had 
fully robbed the land of its plant-food. 

To exhaust land, by growing and selling clover, is an agricultural 
impossibility, for the simple reason that, long before the soil is 
exhausted, the clover would produce such a poverty-stricken crop, 
that we should give up the attempt. 

We can make our land poor, by growing clover, and selling it ; 
or, w^e can make our land rich, by growing clover, and feeding it 
out on the farm. Or, rather, we can make our land rich, by drain- 
ing it where needed, cultivating it thoroughly, so as to develope 
the latent plant-food existing in the soil, and then by growing 
clover to take up and organize this plant-food. This is how to 
make land rich by growing clover. It is not, in one sense, the 
clover that makes the land rich ; it is the draining and cultivation, 
that furnishes the food for the clover. The clover takes up this 
food and concentrates it. The clover does not create the plant- 
food; it merely saves it. It is the thorough cultivation that 
enriches the land, not the clover. 

" I wash," writes a distinguished New York gentleman, who has 
a farm of barren sand, " you would tell us whether it is best to let 
clover ripen and rot on the surface, or plow it under when in 
blossom ? I have heard that it gave more nitrogen to the land to 
let it ripen and rot on it, but as I am no chemist, I do not know." 

If, instead of plowing under the clover — say the last of June, it 
was left to grow a month longer, it is quite possible that the clover- 
roots and seed would contain more nitrogen than they did a month 
earlier. It was formerly thought that there was a loss of nitrogen 
during the ripening process, but the evi'lence is not altogether con- 
clusive on the point. Still, if I had a piece of sandy land that I 
wished to enrich by clover, I do not think I should plow it under in 
June, on the one hand, or let it grow until maturity, and rot down, 
on the other. I should rather prefer to mow the crop just as it 
commenced to blossom, and let the clover lie, spread out on the 
land, as left by the machine. There would, I think, be no loss of 
fertilizing elements by evaporation, while the clover-hay would act 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER. 135 

as a mulch, and the second growth of clover would be encouraged 
by it. Mow this second crop again, about the first week in August. 
Then, unless it was desirable to continue the process another year, 
the land might be plowed up in two or three weeks, turning under 
the two previous crops of clover that are on the surface, together 
with the green-clover still growing. I believe this would be better 
than to let the clover exhaust itself by running to seed. 



CHAPTER XXV. 
DR. VCELCKER'S EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER. 

In the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, for 
1868, Dr. Voelcker, the able chemist of the Society, and formerly 
Professor of Agricultural Chemistry, at the Royal Agricultural 
College at Cirencester, England, has given us a paper " On the 
Causes of the Benefits of Clover, as a preparatory Crop for 
Wheat." The paper has been repeatedly and extensively quoted 
in this country, but has not been as critically studied as the impor- 
tance of the subject demands. 

"Never mind all that," said the Deacon, "tell us what Dr. 
Voelcker says." 

"Here is the paper," said I, " and Charley will read it to us." 
Charley read as follows : 

" Agricultural chemists inform us, that in order to maintain the 
productive powers of the land unimpaired, we must restore to it the 
phosphoric acid, potash, nitrogen, and other substances, which 
enter into the composition of our farm crops ; the constant removal 
of organic and inorganic soil constituents, by the crops usually sold 
off the farm, leading, as is well known, to more or less rapid dete- 
rioration and gradual exhaustion of the land. Even the best 
wheat soils of this and other countries, become more and more im- 
poverished, and sustain a loss of wheat-yielding power, when corn- 
crops are grown in too rapid succession without manure. Hence, 
the universal practice of manuring, and that also of consuming oil- 
cake, corn, and similar purchased food on land naturally poor, or 
partially exhausted by previous cropping. 

" Whilst, however, it holds good as a general rule, that no soil 
can be cropped for any length of time, without gradually becoming 



136 TALKS ON MANURES. 

more and more infertile, if no manure be applied to it, or if the 
fertilizing elements removed by the crops grown thereon, be not by- 
some means or other restored, it is, nevertheless, a fact, that after a 
heavy crop of clover carried off as hay, the land, far from being less 
fertile than before, is peculiarly well adapted, even without the 
addition of manure, to bear a good crop of wheat in the following 
year, provided the season be favorable to its growth. This fact, in- 
deed, is so well known, that many farmers justly regard the growth 
of clover as one of the best preparatory operations which the land 
can undergo, in order to its producing an abundant crop of wheat 
in the following year. It has further been noticed, that clover 
mown twice, leaves the land in a better condition, as regards its 
wheat-producing capabilities, than when mown once only for hay, 
and the second crop fed off on the land by sheep ; for, notwith- 
standing that in the latter instance the fertilizing elements in the 
clover-crop are in part restored in the sheep excrements, yet, con- 
trary to expectation, this partial restoration of the elements of 
fertility to the land has not the effect of producing more or better 
wheat in the following year, than is reaped on land from off which 
the whole clover-crop has been carried, and to which no manure 
whatever has been applied. 

" Again, in the opinion of several good, practical agriculturists, 
with whom I have conversed on the subject, land whereon clover 
has been grown for seed in the preceding year, yields a better 
crop of wheat than it does when the clover is mown twice for hay, 
or even only once, and afterwards fed off by sheep." 

"I do not think," said the Deacon, " that this agrees with our 
experience here. A good crop of clover-seed is profitable, but it is 
thought to be rather hard on land." 

*' Such," said I, " is the opinion of John Johnston. He thinks 
allowing clover to go to seed, impoverishes the soil." 

Charley, continued to read : 

''Whatever may be the true explanation of the apparent anom- 
alies connected with the growth and chemical history of the clover- 
plant, the facts just mentioned, having been noticed, not once or 
twice only, or by a solitary observer, but repeatedly, and by num- 
bers of intelligent farmers, are certainly entitled to credit ; and 
little wisdom, as it strikes me, is displayed by calling them into 
question, because they happen to contradict the prevailing theory, 
according to which a soil is said to become more or less impover- 
ished, in proportion to the large or small amount of organic and 
mineral soil constituents carried off in the produce." 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER. 137 

" That is well said," I remarked, " and very truly ; but I will not 
interrupt the reading." 

" In the course of a long residence," continues Dr. Voelcker, " in 
a purely agricultural district, I have often been struck with the 
remarkably healthy appearance and good yield of wheat, on land 
from which a heavy crop of clover-hay was obtained in the 
preceding year. I have likewise had frequent opportunities of 
observing, that, as a rule, wheat grown on part of a field whereon 
clover has been twice mown for hay, is better than the produce of 
that on the part of the same field on which the clover has been 
mown only once for hay, and afterwards fed off by sheep. These 
observations, extending over a number of years, led me to inquire 
into the reasons why clover is specially well fitted to prepare land 
for wheat ; and in this paper, I shall endeavor, as the result of my 
experiments on the subject, to give an intelligible explanation of 
the fact, that clover is so excellent a preparatory crop for wheat, as 
it is practically known to be. 

"By those taking a superficial view of the subject, it may be sug- 
gested that any injury likely to be caused by the removal of a cer- 
tain amount of fertilizing matter, is altogether insignificant, and 
more than compensated for, by the benefit which results from the 
abundant growth of clover-roots, and the physical improvement in 
the soil, which takes place in their decomposition. Looking, how- 
ever, more closely into the matter, it will be found that in a good 
crop of clover-hay, a very considerable amount of both mineral 
and organic substances is carried ofi" the land, and that, if the total 
amount of such constituents in a crop had to be regarded exclu- 
sively as a measure for determining the relative degrees in which 
diflerent farm crops exhaust the soil, clover would have to be de- 
scribed as about the most exhausting crop in the entire rotation. 

" Clover-hay, on an average, and in round numbers, contains in 
100 parts : 

Water 17.0 

Nitrogenous substances, (flesh-forming matters)* 15.6 

Non-nitrogenous compounds 59.9 

Mineral matter, (ash) 7.5 

100.0 
* Containing nitrogen 2.5 

" The mineral portion, or ash, in 100 parts of clover-hay, consists 
of: 



138 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Phosphoric acid 7.5 

Sulphuric acid 4.3 

Carbonic acid 18.0 

Silica 3.0 

Lime 30.0 

Magnesia 8.5 

Potash 20.0 

Soda, chloride of sodium, oxide of iron, sand, loss, etc 8.7 

100.0 



" Let us suppose the land to have yielded four tons of clover-hay 
per acre. According to the preceding data, we find that such a 
crop includes 224 lbs. of nitrogen, equal to 272 lbs. of ammonia, 
and 672 lbs. of mineral matter or ash constituents. 

In 672 lbs. of clover-ash, we find : 

Phosphoric acid 51i lbs. 

Sulphuric acid 29 

Carbonic acid 121 

Silica 20 

Lime 201 

Magjnesia 57 

Potash 134^ 

Soda, chloride of sodium, oxide of iron, sand, etc 58 

673 IbsT 



" Four tons of clover-hay, the produce of one acre, thus contain a 
large amount of nitrogen, and remove from the soil an enormous 
quantity of mineral matters, abounding in lime and potash, and 
containing also a good deal of phosphoric acid. 

"Leaving for a moment the question untouched, whether the 
nitrogen contained in the clover, is derived from the soil, or from 
the atmosphere, or partly from the one, and partly from the other, 
no question can arise as to the original source from which the 
mineral matters in the clover produce are derived. In relation, 
therefore, to the ash-constituents, clover must be regarded as one 
of the most exhausting crops usually cultivated in this country. 
This appears strikingly to be the case, when we compare the pre- 
ceding figures with the quantity of mineral matters which an aver- 
age crop of wheat removes from an acre of land. 

" The grain and straw of wheat contain, in round numbers, in 100 
parts : 

Grains of 
Wheat. Straw. 

Water 15.0 16.0 

Nitrogenous substances, flesh-forming matter)* 11.1 4.0 

Non-nitrogenous substances 72,2 74.9 

Mineral matter, (ash) 1.7 5.1 

"lOOO lOO 



■ Containing nitrogen 1.78 .64 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER. 



139 



" The ash of wheat contains, in 100 parts : 

Grain. 

Phosphoric acid 50.0 

Sulphuric acid 0.5 

Carbonic acid 

Silica 2.5 

Lime 3.5 

Magnesia 11.5 

Potash 30.0 

Soda, chloride of sodium, oxide of iron, sand, etc 2.0 

Total 100.0 



Straw. 
5.0 
2.7 

67.0 
5.5 

2.0 
13.0 

4^ 

lUO.O 



" The mean produce of wheat, per acre, may be estimited at 25 
bushels, which, at 60 lbs. per bushel, gives 1,500 lbs. ; and as the 
weight of the straw is generally twice that of the grain, its pro- 
duce will be 3,000 lbs. According, therefore, to the preceding 
data, there will be carried away from the soil : 

In 1,500 lbs. of the grain . . 25 lbs. of mineral food, fin round numbers). 
In 3,000 lbs. of the straw. . 150 lbs. of mineral food, (in round numbers). 

Total 175 lbs. 

" On the average of the analyses, it will be found that the com- 
position of these 175 lbs. is as follows : 





In the 
grain. 


In the 
straw. 


Total. 


Phosphoric acid . • 


12.5 lbs. 
0.1 '' 

0.6 " 
0.9 " 
2.9 " 
7.5 " 
0.5 " 
25. lbs. 


7.5 lbs. 
4.0 " 

100.5 " 

8.2 " 
3.0 '• 

19.5 " 

7.3 " 
150. lbs. 


20.0 lbs. 


Sulphuric acid 

Carbonic acid 

Silica 


4.1 " 
101.1 " 


Lime. .. 

jlagrnesia . 


9.1 " 
5.9 " 


Potash 

Soda, chloride of sodium, oxide of iron, sand, etc. 


27.0 " 
7.8 '• 
175. lbs. 



" The total quantity of ash constituents carried off the land, in an 
average crop of wheat, thus amounts to only 175 lbs. per acre, 
whilst a good crop of clover removes as much as 672 lbs. 

" Nearly two-thirds of the total amount of mineral in the grain and 
gtraw of one acre of wheat, consists of silica, of which there is an 
ample supply in almost every soil. The restoration of silica, there- 
fore, need not trouble us in au}^ wa}^ especially as there is not a 
single instance on record, proving that silica, even in a soluble 
condition, has ever been applied to land, with the slightest advan- 
tage to corn, or grass-crops, which are rich in silica, and which, for 
this reason, may be assumed to be particularly grateful for it in a 
soluble state. Silica, indeed, if at all capable of producing a bene- 
ficial effect, ought to be useful to these crops, either by strengthen- 
ing the straw, or stems of graminaceous plants, or otherwise bene- 
Iting them ; but, after deducting the amount of silica from the 



140 TALKS ON MANURES. 

total amount of mineral matters in the wheat produced from one 
acre, only a trifling quantity of other and more valuable fertilizing 
ash constituents of plants will be left. On comparing the relative 
amounts of phosphoric acid, Jlnd potash, in an average crop of 
wheat, and a good crop of clover-hay, it will be seen that one acre 
of clover-hay contaijis as much phosphoric acid, as two and one- 
half acres of wheat, and as much potash as the produce from five 
acres of the same crop. Clover thus unquestionably removes from 
the land very much more mineral matter than does wheat ; wheat, 
notwithstanding, succeeds remarkably well after clover. 

" Four tons of clover -hay, or the produce of an acre, contains, as 
already stated, 224 lbs. of nitrogen, or calculated as ammonia, 
372 lbs. 

" Assuming the grain of wheat to furnish 1.78 per cent of nitrogen, 
and wheat-straw, .64 per cent, and assuming also that 1,500 lbs. of 
corn, and 3,000 lbs, of straw, represent the average produce per 
acre, there will be in the grain of wheat, per acre, 26.7 lbs. of nitro- 
gen, and in the straw, 19.2 lbs., or in both together, 46 lbs. of 
nitrogen ; in round numbers, equal to about 55 lbs. of ammonia, 
which is only about one-fifth the quantity of nitrogen in the pro- 
duce of an acre of clover. Wheat, it is well known, is specially 
benefited by the application of nitrogenous manures, and as 
clover carries off so large a quantity of nitrogen, it is natural to 
expect the yield of wheat, after clover, to fall short of what the 
land might be presumed to produce without manure, before a crop 
of clover was taken from it. Experience, however, has proved 
the fallacy of tliis presumption, for the result is exactly the oppo- 
site, inasmuch as a better and heavier crop of wheat is produced 
than without the intercalation of clover. What, it may be asked, 
is the explanation of this apparent anomaly '? 

"In taking up this inquiry, I was led to pass in review the cele- 
brated and highly important experiments, undertaken by Mr. 
Lawes and Dr. Gilbert, on the continued growth of wheat on the 
same soil, for a long succession of years, and to examine, likewise 
carefully, many points, to which attention is drawn, by the same 
authors in their memoirs on the growth of red clover by different 
manures, and on the Lois Weedon plan of growing wheat. Abun- 
dant and most convincing evidence is supplied by these indefatiga- 
ble experimenters, that the wheat-producing powers of a soil are 
not increased in any sensible degree by the liberal supply of all 
the mineral matters, which enter into the composition of the ash of 
wheat, and that the abstraction of these mineral matters from the 
soil, in any much larger proportions than can possibly take place 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER. 141 

under ordinary cultivation, in no wise affects the yield of wheat, 
provided there be at the same time a liberal supply of available 
nitrogen within the soil itself. The amount of the latter, there- 
fore, is regarded by Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, as the measure of 
the increased produce of grain which a soil furnishes. 

" In conformity with these views, the farmer, when he wishes to 
increase the yield of his wheat, finds it to his advantage to have 
recourse to ammoniacal, or other nitrogenous manures, and depends 
more or less entirely upon the soil, for the supply of the neccessary 
mineral or ash-constituents of wheat, having found such a supply 
to be amply sufficient for his requirements. As far, therefore, as 
the removal from the soil of a large amount of mineral soil-constitu- 
ents, by the clover-crop, is concerned, the fact viewed in the light 
of the Rothamsted experiments, becomes at once intelligible ; for, 
notwithstanding the abstraction of over 600 lbs. of mineral matter 
by a crop of clover, the succeeding wheat-crop does not suffer. 
Inasmuch, however, as we have seen, that not only much mineral 
matter is carried off the land in a crop of clover, but also much 
nitrogen, we might, in the absence of direct evidence to the con- 
trary, be led to suspect that wheat, after clover, would not be a 
good crop ; whereas, the fact is exactly the reverse. 

*' It is worthy of notice, that nitrogenous manures, which have 
such a marked and beneficial effect upon wheat, do no good, but 
in certain combinations, in some seasons, do positive harm to 
clover. Thus, Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, in a series of experi- 
ments on the growth of red-clover, by different manures, obtained 
14 tons of fresh green produce, equal to about three and three- 
fourths tons of clover hay, from the unmanured portion of the 
experimental field ; and where sulphates of potash, soda, and mag- 
nesia, or sulphate of potash and superphosphate of lime were em- 
ployed, 17 to 18 tons, (equal to from about four and one-half to 
nearly five tons of hay), were obtained. When salts of ammonia 
were added to the mineral manures, the produce of clover-hay was, 
upon the whole, less than where the mineral manures were used 
alone. The wheat, grown after the clover, on the unmanured plot, 
gave, however, 29^ bushels of corn, whilst in the adjoining field, 
where wheat was grown after wheat, without manure, only 15^ 
bushels of corn per acre were obtained. Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert 
notice especially, that in the clover-crop of the preceding year, 
very much larger quantities, both of mineral matters and of 
nitrogen, were taken from the land, than were removed in the 
unmanured wheat-crop in the same year, in the adjoining field. 
Notwithstanding this, the soil from which the clover had been 



142 TALKS 01^ MANURES. 

taken, was in a condition to yield 14 bushels more wheat, per acre, 
than that upon which wheat had been previously grown ; the yield 
of wheat, after clover, in these experiments, being fully equal to 
that in another field, where large quantities of manure were used. 
" Taking all these circumstances into account, is there not pre- 
sumptive evidence, that, notwithstanding the removal of a large 
amount of nitrogen in the clover-hay, an abundant store of availa- 
ble nitrogen is left in the soil, and also that in its relations towards 
nitrogen in the soil, clover differs essentially from wheat ? The 
results of our experience in the growth of the two crops, appear 
to indicate that, whereas the growth of the wheat rapidly ex- 
hausts the land of its available nitrogen, that of clover, on the 
contrary, tends somehow or other to accumulate nitrogen within 
the soil itself. If this can be shown to be the case, an intelligible 
explanation of the fact that clover is so useful as a preparatory crop 
for wheat, will be found in the circumstance, that, during the 
growth of clover, nitrogenous food, for which wheat is particularly 
grateful, is either stored up or rendered available in the soil. 

" An explanation, however plausible, can hardly be accepted as 
correct, if based mainly on data, which, although highly probable, 
are not proved to be based on fact. In chemical inquiries, 
especially, nothing must be taken for granted, that has not been 
proved by direct experiment. The following questions naturally 
suggest themselves in reference to this subject: What is the 
amount of nitrogen in soils of different characters ? What is the 
amount more particularly after a good, and after an indifferent crop 
of clover ? Why is the amount of nitrogen in soils, larger after 
clover, than after wheat and other crops ? Is the nitrogen present 
in a condition in which it is available and useful to wheat ? And 
lastly, are there any other circumstances, apart from the supply of 
nitrogenous matter in the soil, which help to account for the bene- 
ficial effects of clover as a preparatory crop for wheat ? 

"In order to throw some light on these questions, and, if pos- 
sible, to give distinct answers to at least some of them, I, j^ears 
ago, when residing at Cirencester, began a series of experiments ; 
and more recently, I have been fortunate enough to obtain the co- 
operation of Mr. Eobert Valentine, of Leighton Buzzard, who 
kindly undertook to supply me with materials for my analysis. 

" My first experiments were made on a thin, calcareous, clay soil, 
resting on oolitic limestone, and producing generally a fair crop of 
red-clover. The clover-field formed the slope of a rather steep 
hillock, and varied much in depth. At the top of the hill, the soil 
became very stony at a depth of four inches, so that it could only 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER. 143 

with difficulty be excavated to a depth of six inches, when the bare 
limestone-rock made its appearance. At the bottom of the field 
the soil was much deeper, and the clover stronger, than at the upper 
part. On the brow of the hill, where the clover appeared to be 
strong, a square yard was measured out ; and at a little distance off, 
where the clover was very bad, a second square yard was meas- 
ured; in both plots, the soil being taken up to a depth of six 
inches. The soil, where the clover was good, may be distinguished 
from the other, by being marked as No. 1, and that where it was 
bad, as Xo. 2. 

CLOVER-SOIL NO. 1. (GOOD CLOVER). 

*' The roots having first been shaken out to free them as much 
as possible from the soil, were then washed once or twice with cold 
distilled water, and, after having been dried for a little while in the 
sun, were weighed, when the square yard produced 1 lb. 10^ oz. 
of cleaned clover-roots, in an air-dry state; an acre of land, or 
4,840 square yards, accordingly yielded, in a depth of six inches, 
3.44 tons, or 3^ tons in round numbers, of clover-roots. 

" Fully dried in a water-bath, the roots were found to contain 
altogether 44.67 per cent of water, and on being burnt in a pla- 
tinum capsule, yielded 6.089 of ash. A portion of the dried, finely 
powdered and well mixed roots, was burned with soda lime, in a 
combustion tube, and the nitrogen contained in the roots other- 
wise determined in the usual way. Accordingly, the following 
is the general composition of the roots from the soil No. 1 : 

Water 44.675 

Organic matter* 49.236 

Mineral matter 6.089 

100.006 

* Containing nitrogen ■^•^?^ 

Equal to ammonia 1.575 

" Assuming the whole field to have produced 3^ tons of clover- 
roots, per acre, there will be 99.636 lbs., or in round numbers, 100 
lbs. of nitrogen in the clover-roots from one acre ; or, about twice 
as much nitrogen as is present in the average produce of an acre 
of wheat." 

"That is a remarkable fact," said the Deacon, "as I understand 
nitrogen is the great thing needed by wheat, and yet the wc*^* alone 
of the clover, contain twice as much nitrogen as an average crop 
of wheat. Go on Charley, it is quite interesting."- 

"The soil," continues Dr. Voelcker, "which had been separated 
from the roots, was passed through a sieve to deprive it of any 
stones it might contain. It was then partially dried, and the nitre- 



144 TALKS ON MANURES. 

gen in it determined in the usual manner, by combustion with soda- 
lime, when it yielded .313 per cent of nitrogen, equal to .38 of 
ammonia, in one combustion; and .373 per cent of nitrogen, equal 
to .46 of ammonia, in a second determination. 

" That the reader may have some idea of the character of this 
soil, it may be stated, that it was further submitted to a general 
analysis, according to which, it was found to have the foUowmg 
composition : 
GENERAL COMPOSITION OF SOIL, NO. 1. (GOOD CLOVER). 

Moisture ^'^'I^ 

Oro;anic matter* 9.72 

Oxide of iron and alumina 13.24 

Carbonate of lime ._ 8.82 

Magnesia, alkalies, etc " 1.72 

Insoluble silicious matter, (chiefly clay) 47.77 

100.00 

* Containing nitrogen 813 

Equal to ammonia 380 

" The second square yard from the brow of the hill, where the 
clover was bad, produced 13 ounces of air-dry, and partially clean 
roots, or 1.75 tons per acre. On analysis, they were found to have 
the following composition : 

CLOVER-ROOTS, NO. 2. (BAD CLOVER). 

Water 55.732 

Organic matter* 39.408 

Mineral matter, (ash) 4.860 

100.000 

* Containing nitrogen 792 

Equal to ammonia 901 

" The roots on the spot where the clover was very bad, yielded 
only 31 lbs. of nitrogen per acre, or scarcely one-third of the 
quantity which was obtained from the roots where the clover was 
good. 

" The soil from the second square yard, on analysis, was found, 
when freed from stones by sifting, to contain in 100 parts : 
COMPOSITION OF SOIL, NO. 2. (BAD CLOVER). 

Water 17.24 

Organic matter* 9.64 

Oside of iron and alumina 11.89 

Carbonate of lime 14.50 

Magnesia, alkalies, etc 1.53 

Insoluble silicious matter 45.20 

lUU.QO 

2d detcr- 
mination. 

*Containing nitrogen 306 .380 

Equal to ammonia 370 .470 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER. 145 

" Both portions of the clover-soil thus contained about the same 
percentage of organic matter, and yielded nearly the same amount 
of nitrogen. 

" In addition, however, to the nitrogen in the clover-roots, a 
good deal of nitrogen, in the shape of root-fibres, decayed leaves, 
and similar organic matters, was disseminated throughout the fine 
soil in which it occurred, and from which it could not be sepa- 
rated ; but unfortunately, I neglected to weigh the soil from a 
square yard, and am, therefore, unable to state how much nitrogen 
per acre was present in the shape of small root-fibres and other 
organic matters. 

" Before mentioning the details of the experiments made in the 
next season, I will here give the composition of the ash of the par- 
tially cleaned clover-roots : 

COMPOSITION OF ASH OF CLOVER-KOOTS, (PARTIALLY 
CLEANED). 

Oxide of iron and alumina 11.73 

Lime 18.49 

Magnesia 3.03 

Potash 6.88 

Soda 1.93 

Phosphoric acid 3.61 

Sulphuric acid 2.24 

Soluble silica 19.01 

Insoluble silicious matter 24.83 

Carbonic acid, chlorine, and loss 8.25 

"lOOOQ 

" This ash was obtained from clover-roots, which yielded, when 
perfectly dry, in round numbers, eight per cent of ash. Clover- 
roots, washed quite clean, and separated from all soil, yield about 
five per cent of ash ; but it is extremely difficult to clean a large 
quantity of fibrous roots from all dirt, and the preceding analysis 
distinctly shows, that the ash of the clover-roots, analyzed by me, 
was mechanically mixed with a good deal of fine soil, for oxide of 
iron, and alumina, and insoluble silicious matter in any quantity, 
are not normal constituents of plant-ashes. Making allowance for 
soil contamination, the ash of clover-roots, it will be noticed, con- 
tains much lime and potash, as well as an appreciable amount of 
phosphoric and sulphuric acid. On the decay of the clover-roots, 
these and other mineral fertilizing matters are left in the surface- 
soil in a readily available condition, and in considerable propor- 
tions, when the clover stands well. Although a crop of clover 
removes much mineral matter from the soil, it must be borne in 
mind, that its roots extract from the land, soluble mineral fertiliz- 
7 



146 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

ing matters, which, on the decay of the roots, remain in the land 
in a prepared and more readily available form, than that in which 
they originally occur. The benefits arising to wheat, from the 
growth of clover, may thus be due partly to this preparation and 
concentration of mineral food in the surface-soil. 

" The clover on the hillside field, on the whole, turned out a 
very good crop; and, as the plant stood the winter well, and this 
field was left another season in clover, without being plowed up, I 
availed myself of the opportunity of making, during the following 
season, a number of experiments similar to those of the preceding 
year. This time, however, I selected for examination, a square 
yard of soil, from a spot on the brow of the hill, where the clover 
was thin, and the soil itself stony at a depth of four inches; and 
another plot of one square yard at the bottom of the hill, from a 
place where the clover was stronger than that on the brow of the 
hill, and the soil at a depth of six inches contained no large stones. 

SOIL NO. 1. (CLOVER THIN), ON THE BROW OF THE HILL. 

" The roots in a square yard, six inches deep, when picked out 
by hand, and cleaned as much as possible, weighed, in their natural 
state, 2 lbs. 11 oz. ; and when dried on the top of a water-bath, for 
the purpose of getting them brittle and fit for reduction into fine 
powder, 1 lb. 12 oz. 31 grains. In this state they were submitted 
as before to analysis, when they yielded in 100 parts : 

COMPOSITION OF CLOVER-ROOTS, NO. 1, (FROM BROW OF 

HILL). 

Moisture 4,34 

Organic matter* 26.53 

Mineral matter 69.13 

" lUO.OO 

* Containing nitrogen 816 

Equal to ammonia 991 

*' According to these data, an acre of land will yield three tons 
12 cwts. of nearly dry clover-roots, and in this quantity there will 
be about 66 lbs. of nitrogen. The whole of the soil from which 
the roots have been picked out, was passed through a half- inch 
sieve. The stones left in the sieA'-e weighed 141 lbs. ; the soil 
which passed through weighing 218 lbs. 

" The soil was next dried by artificial heat, when the 218 lbs. 
"became reduced to 185.487 lbs. 

" In this partially dried state it contained : 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER. 147 

Moisture 4.21 

Organic matter* 9.78 

Mineral matter! 8 6.01 

100.00 

* Containing nitrogen 391 

Equal to ammonia 475 

t Including phosphoric acid 2^4 

" I also determined the phosphoric acid in the ash of the clover- 
roots. Calculated for the roots in a nearly dry state, the phos- 
phoric acid amounts to .287 per cent. 

" An acre of soil, according to the data, furnished by the six 
inches on the spot where the clover was thin, produced the follow- 
ing quantity of nitrogen : 

Ton. Cwts. Lbs. 

In the fine soil 1 H g 

In the clover-roots ^ 66 

Total quantity of nitrogen per acre Ji^ _11 _99 

*' Tlie organic matter in an acre of this soil, which can not be 
picked out by hand, it will be seen, contains an enormous 
quantity of nitrogen; and although, probably, the greater part of 
the roots and other remains from the clover-crop may not be de- 
composed so thoroughly as to yield nitrogenous food to the suc- 
ceeding wheat-crop, it can scarcely b3 doubted that a considerable 
quantity of nitrogen will become available by the (ime the wheat 
is sown, and that one of the chief reasons why clover benefits the 
succeeding wheat-croj), is to be found in the abundant supply of 
available nitrogenous food furnished by the decaying clover-roots 
and leaves. 

CLOVER-SOIL NO. 2, FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL. 
(GOOD CLOVER.) 

" A square yard of the soil from the bottom of the hill, where 
the clover was stronger than on the brow of the hill, produced 3 
lbs. 8 oz. of fresh clover-roots ; or 1 lb. 11 oz. 47 grains of par- 
tially dried roots; 61 lbs. 9 oz. of limestones, and 239.96 lbs. of 
nearly dry soil. 

" The partially dried roots contained : 

Moisture 5.06 

Organic matter* .[ 31.94 

Mineral matter 63.00 

100.00 

* Containing nitrogen "^804 

" An acre of this soil, six inches deep, produced 3 tons, 7 cwts. 
65 lbs. of clover-roots, containing 61 lbs. of nitrogen ; that is, there 



148 TALKS ON MANURES. 

was very nearly the same quantity of roots and nitrogen in them, 
as that furnished in the soil from the brow of the hill. 

" The roots, moreover, yieldeil .365 per cent of phosphoric acid ; 
or, calculated per acre, 27 lbs. 

" In the partially dried soil, I found : 

Moisture 4.70 

Organic matter* 10.87 

Mineral matterf 84.43 

lUO.O Q 

*Containing nitrogen 405 

Equal to ammonia 491 

t Including phosphoric acid 331 

" According to these determinations, an acre of soil from the 
bottom of the hill, contains : 

To)is. Cwts. Lbs. 

Nitrogen in the organic matter of the soil 2 3 

Nitrogen in clover-roots of the soil 61 

Total amount of nitrogen per acre ^_ 3 _61 

*' Compared with the amount of nitrogen in the soil from the 
brow of the hill, about 11 cwt. more nitrogen was obtained in the 
soil and roots from the bottom of the hill, where the clover was 
more luxuriant. 

" The increased amount of nitrogen occurred in fine root-fibres 
and other organic matters of the soil, and not in the coarser bits of 
roots which were picked out by the hand. It may be assumed 
that the finer particles of organic matter are more readily decom- 
posed than the coarser roots ; and as there was a larger amount of 
nitrogen in this than in the preceding soil, it may be expected that 
the land at the bottom of the hill, after removal of the clover, was 
in a better agricultural condition for wheat, than that on the brow 
of the hill. 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVEK-SOILS. 149 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS FROM BURCOTT 
LODGE FARM, LEIGHTON BUZZARD. 

" The soils for the next experiments, were kindly supplied to me, 
in 1866, by Robert Valentine, of Burcott Lodge, who also sent me 
some notes respecting the growth and yield of clover-hay and seed 
on this soil. 

" Foreign seed, at the rate of 12 lbs. per acre, was sown with a 
crop of wheat, which yielded five quarters per acre the previous 
year. 

" The first crop of clover was cut down on the 25th of June, 
1866, and carried on June 30th. The weather was very warm, 
from the time of cutting until the clover was carted, the thermome- 
ter standing at 80' Fahr. every day. The clover was turned in the 
swath, on the second day after it was cut; on the fourth day, it 
was turned over and put into small heaps of about 10 lbs. each; 
and on the fifth day, these were collected into larger cocks, and 
then stacked. 

*' The best part of an 11-acre field, produced nearly three tons of 
clover-hay, sun-dried, per acre ; the whole field yielding on an aver- 
age, 2i tons per acre. This result was obtained by weighing the 
stack three months after the clover was carted. The second crop 
was cut on the 21st of August, and carried on the 27th, the weight 
being nearly 30 cwt. of hay per acre. Thus the two cuttings pro- 
duced just about four tons of clover-hay per acre. 

" The 11 acres were divided into two parts. About one-half was 
mown for hay a second time, and the other part left for seed. The 
produce of the second half of the 11-acre field, was cut on the 8th 
of October, and carried on the 10th. It yielded in round numbers, 
3 cwt. of clover-seed per acre, the season being very unfavorable 
for clover-seed. The second crop of clover, mown for hay, was 
rather too ripe, and just beginning to show seed. 

" A square foot of soil, 18 inches deep, was dug from the second 
portion of the land which produced the clover-hay and clover- 
seed. 

SOIL FROM PARI' OF 11-ACRE FIELD TWICE MOWN FOR HAY. 

" The upper six inches of soil, one foot square, contained all the 
main roots oi 18 strong plants ; the next six inches, only small 
root fibres, and in the third section, a six-inch slice cut down at a 



150 TALKS ON MANURES. 

depth of 12 inches from the surface, no distinct fibres could be 
found. The soil was almost completely saturated with rain when 
it was dug up on the 13th of September, 1866 : 

Lbs, 

The upper six inches of soU, one foot square, weighed 60 

The second '' '' \\ JJ 

Thethird " ^^ 

" These three portions of one foot of soil, 18 inches deep, were 
dried nearly completely, and weighed again; when the first six 
inches weighed 51i lbs. ; the second six inches, 51 lbs. 5 oz. ; and 
the third section, 54 lbs. 2 oz. 

*' The first six inches contained 3 lbs. of silicious stones, (flints), 
which were rejected in preparing a sample for analysis; in the 
two remaining sections there were no large sized stones. The soils 
were pounded down, and passed through a wire sieve. 

" The three layers of soil, dried and reduced to powder, were 
mixed together, and a prepared average sample, when submitted 
to analysis, yielded the following results : 

COMPOSITION OF CLOVER-SOIL, 18 INCHES DEEP, FROM 
PART OF 11-ACRE FIELD, TWICE MOWN FOR HAY. 

' Organic matter 5.86 

Oxides of iron 6.83 

Alumina 7.12 

Carbonate of lime 2.13 

Soluble in hy- J Magnesia 2,01 

drochloric acid. 1 Potash 67 

Soda 08 

Chloride of sodium 02 

Phosphoric acid 18 

, Sulphuric acid 17 

'Insoluble silicious matter, 74.61. Consisting of : 

Alumina 4.37 

Lime, (in a state of silicate) 4.07 

Insoluble in acid \ Magnesia 46 

Potash 19 

Soda 23 

SiUca 65.29 

99.68 

"This soil, it will be seen, contained, in appreciable quantities, 
not only potash and phosphoric acid, but all the elements of fertil- 
ity which enter into the composition of good arable land. It may 
be briefly described as a stiff clay soil, containing a sufficiency of 
lime, potash, and phosphoric acid, to meet all the requirements of 
the clover-crop. Originally, rather unproductive, it has been much 
improved by deep culture ; by being smashed up into rough clods, 
early in autumn, and by being exposed in this state to the crum- 
bling effects of the air, it now yields good corn and forage crops. 



EXPEillMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS. 151 

" In separate portions of the three layers of soil, the proportions 
of nitrogen and phosphoric acid contained in each layer of six 
inches, were determined and found to be as follows : 

Soil dried at 213 deg. Fahr. 
1st six 2c/ six Sd six 
inches, inches, inches. 

Percentage of phosphoric acid 249 .lo4 .172 

Nitrogen 1.62 .092 .064 

Equal to ammonia 198 .112 .078 

" In the upper six inches, as will be seen, the percentage of both 
phosphoric acid and nitrogen, was larger than in the two follow- 
ing layers, while the proportion of nitrogen in the six inches of sur- 
face soil, was much larger than in the next six inches ; and in the 
third section, containing no visible particles of root-fibres, only 
very little nitrogen occurred. 

" In their natural state, the three layers of soil contained : 

1st six 2d six Sd six 
inches, incfies. inches. 

Moisture 17.16 18.24 16.62 

Phosphoric acid 198 .109 .143 

Nitrogen 134 .075 .053 

Equal to ammonia 162 .091 .064 

lbs. lbs. lbs. 

Weight of one foot square of soil 60 61 63 

" Calculated per acre, the absolute weight of one acre of this 
land, six inches deep, weighs : 

Lbs. 

1st six inches 2,613,600 

2d six inches 2,657,160 

3d six inches 2 ,746,280 

" No great error, therefore, will be made, if we assume in the 
subsequent calculations, that six inches of this soil weighs two and 
one-half millions of pounds per acre. 

" An acre of land, according to the preceding determinations, 
contains : 

1st six incTies, 2d six incJies, Bd six inches^ 
Lbs. Lbs. Lbs. 

Phosphoric acid 4,950 2,725 3,575 

Nitroa:en 3,350 1,875 1,325 

Equal to ammonia 4,050 2,275 1.600 

" Tlie proportion of phosphoric acid in six inches of surface soil, 
it will be seen, amounted to about two-tenths per cent ; a propor- 
tion of the whole soil, so small that it may appear insufficient 
for the production of a good corn-crop. However, when calcu- 
lated to the acre, we find that six inches of surface soil in an acre of 
land, actually contain over two tons of phosphoric acid. An aver- 
age crop of wheat, assumed to be 25 bushels of grain, at 60 lbs. per 



152 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

bushel, and 3,000 lbs. of straw, removes from the land on which it 
is grown, 20 lbs. of phosphoric acid. The clover-soil analyzed by 
me, consequently contains an amount of phosphoric acid in a 
depth of only six inches, which is equal to that present in 2474- 
average crops of wheat ; or supposing that, by good cultivation 
and in favorable seasons, the average yield of wheat could be 
doubled, and 50 bushels of grain, at 60 lbs. a bushel, and 6 000 lbs. 
of straw could be raised, 124 of such heavy wheat-crops would con- 
tain no more phosphoric acid than actually occurred m six inches 
of this clover-soil per acre. 

" The mere presence of such an amount of phosphoric acid in a 
soil, however, by no means proves its sufficiency for the produc- 
tion of so many crops of wheat; for, in the first place, it can not 
be shown that the whole of the phosphoric acid found by analysis, 
occurs in the soil in a readily available combination; and, in the 
second place, it is quite certain that the root-fibres of the wheat- 
plant can not reach and pick up, so to speak, every particle of 
phosphoric acid, even supposing it to occur in the soil in a form 
most conducive to ' ready assimilation by the plant.' 

" The calculation is not given in proof of a conclusion which 
would be manifestly absurd, but simply as an illustration of the 
enormous quantity in an acre of soil six inches deep, of a constitu- 
ent forming the smaller proportions of the whole weight of an 
acre of soil of that limited depth. It shows the existence of a prac- 
tically unlimited amount of the most important mineral constitu- 
ents of plants, and clearly points out the propriety of rendering 
available to plants, the natural resources of the soil in plant- 
food ; to draw, in fact, up the mineral wealth of the soil, by thor- 
oughly working the land, and not leaving it unutilized as so much 
dead capital." 

" Good," said the Deacon, " that is the right doctrine." 

" The roots," continues Dr. Vcelcker, " from one square foot of 
soil were cleaned as much as possible, dried completely at 212°, 
and in that state weighed 240 grains. An acre consequently con- 
tained 1,493^ lbs. of dried clover-roots. 

" The clover-roots contained, dried at 212° Fahr., 

Organic matter* 81.33 

Mineral matter,t (ash) 18-67 

100.00 

* Yielding nitrogen 1. 635 

Equal to ammonia 1.985 

t Including insoluble siliclous matter, (clay and sand) 11.67 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS. 153 

" Accordingly the clover-roots in an acre of land furnished 24J 
lbs. of nitrogen. We have thus : 

Lbs. of 
nitrogen. 

In the six inches of surface soil 3,350 

In large clover-roots 241 

in second six inches of soil 1,875 

Total amount of nitrogen in one acre of soil 12 inches deep 5,249i 

Equal to ammonia 6,37 4i 

Or in round numbers, two tons six cwt. of nitrogen per acre ; an 
enormous quantity, which must have a powerful influence in en- 
couraging the luxuriant development of the succeeding wheat- 
crop, although only a fraction of the total amount of nitrogen in 
the clover remains may become sufiiciently decomposed in time to 
be available to the young wheat-plants. 

CLOVER-SOIL FROM PART OF 11-ACRE FIELD OF BURCOTT 

LODGE FARM, LEIGHTON BUZZARD, ONCE MOWN 

FOR HAT, AND LEFT AFTERWARDS FOR SEED. 

" Produce 2^ tons of clover-hay, and 3 cwt. of seed per acre. 

*' This soil was obtained within a distance of five yards from the 
part of the field where the soil was dug up after the two cuttings 
of hay. After the seed there was some difficulty in -finding a 
square foot containing the same number of large clover-roots, as 
that on the field twice mown ; however, at last, in the beginning of 
November, a square foot containing exactly 18 strong roots, was 
found and dug up to a depth of 18 inches. The soil dug after the 
seed was much drier than that dug after the two cuttings of hay : 

The upper six inches deep, one foot square, weighed 56 lbs. 

The next " " " 58 '< 

The third " " " '.'."..".'.*.".*.'.*.*. 60 " 

" After drying by exposure to hot aii-, the three layers of soil 
weighed : 

The -upper six inches, one foot square . . 49* lbs. 

The next ** " 50i " 

The third " " '.... 5U " 



"Equal portions of the dried soil from each six-inch section 
were mixed together and reduced to a fine powder. An average 
sample thus prepared, on analysis, was found to have the follow- 
ing composition : 



154 TALKS ON MANURES. 

COMPOSITION OF CLOVER-SOIL ONCE MOWN FOR HAT, AND 

AFTERWARDS LEFT FOR SEED. DRIED AT 212° FAHR. 

' Organic mattey 5.34 

Oxides of iron 6.07 

Alumina 4.51 

Carbonate of lime 7.51 

Soluble in hy- J Magnesia 1.27 

drochloric acid. ' Potash 52 

Soda 16 

Chloride of sodium 03 

Phosphoric acid 15 

_ Sulphuric acid 19 

' Insoluble silicious matter, 73.84. Consisting of : 

Alumina 4.14 

Lime (in a state of silicate) 2.69 

Insoluble in acid \ Magnesia 68 

Potash 24 

Soda 21 

Silica 65.88 



" The soil, it will be seen, in general character, resembles the pre- 
ceding sample ; it contains a good deal of potash and phosphoric 
acid, and may be presumed to be well suited to the growth of 
clover. It contains more carbonate of lime, and is somewhat 
lighter than the sample from the part of the field twice mown for 
hay, and may be termed heavy calcareous clay. 

" An acre of this land, 18 inches deep, weighed, when very nearly 
dry: 

Lbs. 

Surface, six inches 2,407,900 

Next " 2,444,200 

Third " 2,480,500 

"Or in round numbers, every six inches of soil weighed per 
acre 2^ millions of pounds, which agrees tolerably well with the 
actual weight per acre of the preceding soil. 

" The amount of phosphoric acid and nitrogen in each six-inch 
layer was determined separately as before, when the following 
results were obtained : 

IN DRIED SOIL. 

First Second Third 
six incTies. six indies, six inches. 

Percentage of phosphoric acid 159 .166 ,140 

Nitrogen?. 189 .134 .089 

Equal to ammonia 229 .162 .108 

"An acre, according to these determinations, contains in the 
three separate sections : 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVEE-SOILS. 155 

First Second Third 

six inches. sixincJies. six inches. 

lbs. lbs. lbs. 

Phosphoric acid 3,975 4,150 3,500 

Nitrogen 4,725 3,350 2,225 

Equal to ammonia 5,725 4,050 2,700 

"Here, again, as might naturally be expected, the proportion of 
nitrogen is largest in the surface, where all the decaying leaves 
dropped during the growth of the clover for seed are found, and 
wherein root-fibres are more abundant than in the lower strata. 
The first six inches of soil, it will be seen, contained in round 
numbers, 2^ tons of nitrogen per acre, that is, considerably more 
than was found in the same section of the soil where the clover 
was mown twice for hay ; showing plainly, that during the ripening 
of the clover seed, the surface is much enriched by the nitrogen- 
oUvS matter in the dropping leaves of the clover-plant. 

" Clover-roots. — The roots from one square foot of this soil, freed 
as much as possible from adhering soil, were dried at 212°, and 
when weighed and reduced to a fine powder, gave, on analysis, the 
following results : 

Oganic matter* 64.76 

Mineral matterf 35.24 

100.00 



* Containing nitrogen 1.703 

Equal to ammonia 2.066 

t Including clay and sand (insoluble silicious matter) 26.04 

" A square foot of this soil produced 582 grains of dried clover- 
roots, consequentl}^ an acre yielded 3,622 lbs, of roots, or more 
than twice the weight of roots obtained from the soil of the same 
field where the clover was twice mown for hay. 

"In round numbers, the 3,622 lbs. of clover-roots from the land 
mown once, and afterwards left for seed, contained 51^ lbs. of 
nitrogen. 

" The roots from the soil after clover-seed, it will be noticed, 
were not so clean as the preceding sample, nevertheless, they 
yielded more nitrogen. In 64.76 of organic matter, we have here 
1.702 of nitrogen, whereas, in the case of the roots from the part 
of the field where the clover was twice mown for hay, we have in 
81.33 parts, that is, much more organic matter, and 1.635, or rather 
less of nitrogen. It is evident, therefore^ that the organic matter 
in the soil after clover-seed, occurs in a more advanced stage of 
decomposition, than found in the clover-roots from the part of the 
field twice mown. In the manure, in which the decay of such 
and similar organic remains proceeds, much of the non-nitrogen- 
ous, or carbonaceous matters, of which these remains chiefly, 



156 TALKS ON MANURES. 

though not entirely, consist, is transformed into gaseous carbonic 
acid, and what remains behind, becomes richer in nitrogen and 
mineral matters. A parallel case, showing the dissipation of car- 
bonaceous matter, and the increase in the percentage of nitrogen 
and mineral matter in what is left behind, is presented to us in 
fresh and rotten dung; in long or fresh dung, the percentage of 
organic matter, consisting chiefly of very imperfectly decom- 
posed straw, being larger, and that of nitrogen and mineral 
matter smaller, than in well-rotted dung. 

"The roots from the field after clover-seed, it will be borne in 
mind, were dug up in November, whilst those obtained from the 
land twice mown, were dug up in September ; the former, there- 
fore, may be expected to be in a more advanced state of decay 
than the latter, and richer in nitrogen. 

" In an acre of soil, after clover-seed, we have : 

Lbs. 

Nitrogen in first six inches of Boii 4,725 

Nitrogen in roots 511 

Nitrogen in second six inches of soil 3,350 

Total amount of nitrogen, per acre, in twelve inches of s oil.... ~8, 12(31- 

" Equal to ammonia, 9,867 lbs. : or, in round numbers, 3 tons 
and 13| cwts. of nitrogen per acre; equal to 4 tons 8 cwts. of 
ammonia. 

" This is a very much larger amount of nitrogen than occurred in 
the other soil, and shows plainly that the total amount of nitrogen 
accumulates especially in the surface-soil, when clover is grown 
for seed ; thus explaining intelligibly, as it appears to me, why 
wheat, as stated by many practical men, succeeds better on land 
where clover is grown for seed, than where it is mown for hay. 

"All the three layers of the soil, after clover-seed, are richer in 
nitrogen than the same sections of the soil where the clover was 
twice mown, as will be seen by the following comparative state- 
ment of results : 





I. 

Clovbr-Soil twice 
MOW:<-. 


n. 

ClOVER-SoIL ONCE MOWN 
AND THEN LEFT FOR SEED. 




Upper 1 Second \ Third 
6 inches. 6 inches. \ G inches. 


Upi^er ! Next 
G inches, a inches. 

.189 .134 
.229 i .162 


Lowest 
G inches. 


Percentage of nitrogen in 
dried soil 


.168 
.198 


.092 .084 
.112 ' .078 


.089 


Equal to ammonia 


.108 













"This difference in the amount of accumulated nitrogen in 
clover-land, appears still more strikingly on comparing the tots'. 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS. 157 

amounts of nitrogen per acre in the different sections of the two 
portions of the 11-acre field. 

PERCENTAGE OF NITROGEN PER ACRE. 

Fird Second Third 

six inches, six inches, six inches. 

Lbs. Lbs. Lbs. 

I. In soil, clover twice mown* ) 3,350 1,875 1,325 

II. In soil, clover once mown and seeded >• 

afterwards! ) 4,725 3,350 2,225 

Equal to ammonia : ) 

* I. Clover twice mown I 4,050 2,275 1,600 

til. Clover seeded 5,725 4,050 2,700 



Lbs. 

I. Nitrogen in roots of clover twice mown ) 24i 

II. Nitrogen in clover, once mown, and grown for seed after- > 

wards ) 51ir 

I. Weight of dry roots per acre from Soil I [ l,493i 

II. Weight of dry roots per acre from Soil II j 3,022 

Total amount of nitrogen in 1 acre, 12 inches deep of Soil I*. ) 5,249y 

Total amount of nitrogen in 1 acre, 12 inches deep of Soil lit. ) 8,120ff 

Excess of nitrogen in an acre of soil 12 inches deep, calculated [ o .-qq. 

as ammonia in part of field, mown once and then seeded ) '"^ 

* Equal to ammonia ) 6,o74i 

t Equal to ammonia \ 9,867 

" It will be seen that not only was the amount of large clover- 
roots greater in the part where clover was grown for seed, but that 
likewise the different layers of soil were in every instance richer 
in nitrogen after clover -seed, than after clover mown twice for 
hay. 

" Reasons are given in the beginning of this paper which it is 
hoped will have convinced the reader, that the fertility of land 
is not so much measured by the amount of ash constituents of 
plants which it contains, as by the amount of nitrogen, which, to- 
g2ther with an excess of such ash constituents, it contains in an 
available form. It has been shown likewise, that the removal from 
the soil of a large amount of mineral matter in a good clover-crop, 
in conformity with many direct field experiments, is not likely in 
any degree to affect the wheat-crop, and that the yield of wheat on 
soils under ordinary cultivation, according to the experience of 
many farmers, and the direct and numerous experiments of Messrs. 
Lawes and Gilbert, rises or falls, other circumstances being equal, 
with the supply of available nitrogenous food which is given to 
the wheat. This being the case, we can not doubt that the benefits 
arising from the growth of clover to the succeeding wlieat, are 
mainly due to the fact thnt an immense amount of nitrogenous 
food accumulates in the soil during the growth of clover. 



158 TALKS ON MANURES. 

**This accumulation of nitrogenous plant-food, specially useful 
to cereal crops, is, as shown in the preceding experiments, much 
greater when clover is grown for seed, than when it is made into 
hay. This affords an intelligible explanation of a fact long 
observed by good practical men, although denied by others who 
decline to accept their experience as resting upon trustworthy evi- 
dence, because, as they say, land cannot become more fertile when 
a crop is grown upon it for seed, which is carried off, than when 
that crop is cut down and the produce consumed on the land. The 
chemical points brought forward in the course of this inquiry, 
show plainly that mere speculation as to what can take place in a 
soil, and what not, do not much advance the true theory of cer- 
tain agricultural practices. It is only by carefully investigating 
subjects like the one under consideration, that positive proofs are 
given, showing the correctness of intelligent observers in the fields. 
Many years ago, I made a great many experiments relative to the 
chemistry of farm-yard manure, and then showed, amongst other 
particulars, that manure, spread at once on the land, need not 
there and then be plowed in, inasmuch as neither a broiling sun, 
nor a sweeping and drying wind will cause the slightest loss of 
ammonia ; and that, therefore, the old-fashioned farmer who carts 
his manure on the land as soon as he can, and spreads it at once, 
but who plows it in at his convenience, acts in perfect accordance 
with correct chemical principles involved in the management of 
farm-yard manure. On the present occasion, my main object has 
been to show, not merely by reasoning on the subject, but by actual 
experiments, that the larger the amounts of nitrogen, potash, soda, 
lime, phosphoric acid, etc., which are removed from the laud in a 
clover-crop, the better it is, nevertheless, made thereby for produc- 
ing in the succeeding year an abundant crop of wheat, other cir- 
cumstances being favorable to its growth. 

" Indeed, no kind of manure can be compared in point of efficacy 
for wheat, to the manuring which the land gets in a really good 
crop of clover. The farmer who wishes to derive the full benefit 
from his clover-lay, should plow it up for wheat as soon as possi- 
ble in the autumn, and leave it in a rough state as long as is admis- 
sible, in order that the air may find free access into the land, and 
the organic remains left in so much abundance in a good crop of 
clover be changed into plant-food ; more especially, in other words, 
in order that the crude nitrogenous organic matter in the clover- 
roots and decaying leaves, may have time to become transformed 
into ammoniacal compounds, and these, in the course of time, into 
nitrates, which I am strongly inclined to think is the form in which 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS. 159 

nitrogen is assimilated, par excellence by cereal crops,and in which, 
at all events, it is more efficacious than in any other state of com- 
bination wherein it may be used as a fertilizer. 

" When the clover-lay is plowed up early, the decay of the clover 
is sufficiently advanced by the time the young wheat-plant stands 
in need of readily available nitrogenous food, and this being uni- 
formly distributed through the whole of the cultivated soil, is 
ready to benefit every single plant. This equal and abundant dis- 
tribution of food, peculiarly valuable to cereals, is a great advan- 
tage, and speaks strongly in favor of clover as a preparatory crop 
for wheat. 

" Nitrate of soda, an excellent spring top-dressing for wheat and 
cereals in general, in some seasons fails to produce as good an effect 
as in others. In very dry springs, the rainfall is not sufficient to 
wash it properly into the soil and to distribute it equally, and in 
very wet seasons it is apt to be washed either into the drains or 
into a stratum of the soil not accessible to the roots of the young 
wheat. As, therefore, the character of the approaching season 
can not usually be predicted, the application of nitrate of soda to 
wheat is always attended with more or less uncertainty. 

" The case is different, when a good crop of clover-hay has been 
obtained from the land on which wheat is intended to be grown 
afterwards. An enormous quantity of nitrogenous organic matter, 
as we have seen, is left in the land after the removal of the clover- 
crop ; and these remains gradually decay and furnish ammonia, 
which at first and during the colder months of the year, is retained 
by the well known absorbing properties which all good wheat- 
soils possess. In spring, when warmer weather sets in, and the 
wheat begins to make a push, these ammonia compounds in the soil 
are by degrees oxidized into nitrates ; and as this change into food 
peculiarly favorable to young cereal plants, proceeds slowly 
but steadily, we have in the soil itself, after clover, a source from 
which nitrates are continuously produced ; so that it does not much 
affect the final yield of wheat, whether heavy rains remove some 
or all of the nitrate present in the soil. The clover remains thus 
afford a more continuous source from which nitrates are produced, 
and greater certainty for a good crop of wheat than when recourse 
is had to nitrogenous top-dressings in the spring. 

SUMMARY. 

" The following are some of the chief points of interest which I 
have endeavored fully to develope in the preceding pages : 

" 1. A good crop of clover removes from the soil more potash, 



160 TALKS ON MANURES. 

phosphoric acid, lime, and other mineral matters, which enter into 
the composition of the ashes of our cultivated crops, than any other 
crop usually grown in this country. 

" 2. There is fully three tirhes as much nitrogen in a crop of 
clover as in the average produce of the grain and straw of wheat 
per acre. 

"3. Notwithstanding the large amount of nitrogenous matter 
and of ash-constituents of plants,' in the produce of an acre, clover 
is an excellent preparatory crop for wheat. 

*' 4. During the growth of clover, a large amount of nitrogenous 
matter accumulates in the soil. 

" 5. This accumulation, which is greatest in the surface soil, is 
due to decaying leaves dropped during the growth of clover, and 
to an abundance of roots, containing, when dry, from one and 
three-fourths to two per cent of nitrogen. 

" 6. The clover-roots are stronger and more numerous, and more 
leaves fall on the ground when clover is grown for seed, than 
when it is mown for hay ; in consequence, more nitrogen is left 
after clover-seed, than after hay, which accounts for wheat yield- 
ing a better crop after clover-seed than after hay. 

" 7. The development of roots being checked, when the produce, 
in a green condition, is fed off by sheep, in all probability, leaves 
still less nitrogenous matter in the soil than when clover is 
allowed to get riper and is mown for hay ; thus, no doubt, account- 
ing for the observation made by practical men, that, notwithstand- 
ing the return of the produce in the sheep excrements, wheat is 
generally stronger, and yields better, after clover mown for hay, 
than when the clover is fed off green by sheep. 

" 8. The nitrogenous matters in the clover remains, on their 
gradual decay, are finally transformed into nitrates, thus affording 
a continuous source of food on which cereal crops specially delight 
to grow. 

'* 9. There is strong presumptive evidence that the nitrogen 
which exists in the air, in shape of ammonia and nitric acid, and 
descends, in these combinations, with the rain which falls on the 
ground, satisfies, under ordinary circumstances, the requirements 
of the clover-crop. This crop causes a large accumulation of 
nitrogenous matters, which are gradually changed in the soil into 
nitrates. The atmosphere thus furnishes nitrogenous food to the 
succeeding wheat indirectly, and, so to say,. gratis. 

" 10. Clover not only provides abundance of nitrogenous food, 
but delivers this food in a readily available form (as nitrates), more 
gradually and continuously, and, consequently, with more cer- 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS. 161 

tainty of a good result, than such food can be applied to the land 
in the shape of nitrogenous spring top-dressings." 



" Thank you Charley," sa,id the Doctor, " that is the most re- 
markable paper I ever listened to. I do not quite know what to 
think of it. We shall have to examine it carefully." 

" The first three propositions in the Summary," said I, " are un- 
questionably true. Proposition No. 4, is equally true, but we must 
be careful what meaning we attach to the word ' accumulate.' The 
idea is, that clover gathers up the nitrogen in the soil. It does not 
increase the absolute amount of nitrogen. It accumulates it — brings 
it together." 

*' Proposition No. 5, will not be disputed ; and I think we may 
accept No. 6, also, though we can not be sure that allowing clover 
to go to seed, had anything to do with the increased quantity of 
clover-roots." 

" Proposition No. 7, may or may not be true. We have no 
proof, only a ' probability ; ' and the same may be said in regard to 
propositions Nos. 8, 9, and 10." 

The Deacon seemed uneasy. He did not like these remarks. He 
had got the impression, while Charley was reading, that much 
more was proved than Dr. Vcelcker claims in his Summary. 

" I thought," said he, '* that on the part of the field where the 
clover was allowed to go to seed. Dr. Voelcker found a great in- 
crease in the amount of nitrogen." 

" That seems to be the general impression," said the Doctor, " but 
in point of fact, we have no proof that the growth of clover, either 
for hay or for seed, had anything to do with the quantity of nitro- 
gen and phosphoric acid found in the soil. The facts given by Dr. 
Voelcker, are exceedingly interesting. Let us look at them : " 

"A field of 11 acres was sown to winter-wheat, and seeded down 
in the spring, with 12 lbs. per acre of clover. The wheat yielded 
40 bushels per acre. The next year, on the 25th of June, the 
clover was mown for hay. We are told that * the best part of the 
field yielded three tons (6,720 lbs.) of clover-hay per acre; the 
whole field averaging 2\ tons (5,600 lbs.) per acre.' " 

"We are not informed how much land there was of the *best 
part,' but assuming that it was half the field, the poorer part 
must have yielded only 4,480 lbs. of hay per acre, or only two- 
thirds as much as the other. This shows that there was consider- 
able dlfi'erence in the quality or condition of the land. 

** After the field was mown for hay, it was divided into two parts : 
one part was mown again for hay, August 21st, and yielded about 



162 TALKS ON MANURES. 

30 cwt. (3,360 lbs.) of hay per acre ; the other half was allowed to 
grow six or seven weeks longer, and was then (October 8th), cut 
for seed. The yield was a littlp over 5i bushels of seed per acre. 
Whether the clover allowed to grow for seed, was on the richer or 
poorer half of the field, we are not informed. 

" Dr. Ycelcker then analyzed the soil. That from the part of the 
field mown twice for hay, contained per acre : 

First six Second six Third six Total, 18. 

inches. inches. inches. inches deep. 

Phosphoric acid 4,950 2,725 3,575 11,250 

Nitrogen 3,350 1,875 1,325 6,550 

"The soil from the part moicn once for hay, and then for seed^ 
contained per acre : 

First six Second six TJiird six Total, 18 

inches. inches. inches. inches deep. 

Phosphoric acid 3,975 4,150 3,500 11,625 

Nitrogen 4,725 3,350 2,225 10,300 

" Dr.Vcelcker also ascertained the amount ^nd composition of the 
clover-roots growing in the soil on the two parts of the field. On 
the part mown twice for hay, the roots contained per acre 24^ lbs. 
of nitrogen. On the part mown once for hay, and then for seed, 
the roots contained 51^ lbs. of nitrogen per acre." 

" Now," said the Doctor, " these facts are very interesting, but 
there is no sort of evidence tending to show that the clover has any- 
thing to do with increasing or decreasing tJw quantity of nitrogen or 
phosphoric acid found in the soiV 

" There was more clover-roots per acre, where the clover was 
allowed to go to seed. But that may be because the soil happened 
to be richer on this part of the field. There was, in the first six 
inches of the soil, 3,350 lbs. of nitrogen per acre, on one-half of the 
field, and 4,725 lbs. on the other half ; and it is not at all surprising 
that on the latter half there should be a greater growth of clover 
and clover-roots. To suppose that during the six or seven weeks 
while the clover was maturing its seed, the clover-plants could 
accumulate 1,375 lbs. of nitrogen, is absurd." 

"But Dr. Yoelcker," said the Deacon, "states, and states truly, 
that ' more leaves fall on the ground when clover is grown for 
seed, than when it is mown for hay ; and, consequently, more nitro- 
gen is left after clover-seed than after hay, which accounts for 
wheat yielding a better crop after clover-seed than after hay.' " 

" This is all true," said the Doctor, " but we can not accept Dr. 
Voelcker's analyses as proving it. To account in this way for the 
1,375 lbs. of nitrogen, we should have to suppose that the clover- 
plants, in going to seed, shed on^ hundred tons of dry clover-leaves 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS. 163 

per acre ! The truth of the matter seems to be, that the part of the 
field on which the clover was allowed to go to seed, was naturally 
much richer than the other part, and consequently produced a 
greater growth of clover and clover-roots." 

We can not find anything in these experiments tending to show 
that we can make land rich by growing clover and selling the crop. 
The analyses of the soil show that in the first eighteen inches of the 
surface-soil, there was 6,550 lbs. of nitrogen per acre, on one part 
of the field, and 10,300 lbs. on the other part. The clover did not 
create this nitrogen, or bring it from the atmosphere. The wheat 
with which the clover was seeded down, yielded 40 bushels per 
acre. If the field had been sown to wheat again, it probably would 
not have yielded over 25 bushels per acre — and that for want of 
available nitrogen. And yet the clover got nitrogen enough for 
over four tons of clover-hay ; or as much nitrogen as a crop of 
wheat of 125 bushels per acre, and 7i tons of straw would remove 
from the land. 

Now what does this prove ? There was, in 18 inches of the soil 
on the poorest part of the field, 6,550 lbs. of nitrogen per acre. A 
crop of wheat of 50 bushels per acre, and twice that weight of 
straw, would require about 92 lbs. of nitrogen. But the wheat can 
not get this amount from the soil, while the clover can get double 
the quantity. And the only explantion I can give, is, that the clover- 
roots can take up nitrogen from a weaker solution in the soil than 
wheat-roots can. 



'* These experiments of Dr. Voelcker," said I, " give me great en- 
couragement. Here is a soil, ' originally rather unproductive, but 
much improved by deep culture ; by being smashed up into rough 
clods early in autumn, and by being exposed in this state to the 
crumbling effects of the air,' It now produces 40 bushels of wheat 
per acre, and part of the field yielded three tons of clover-hay, 
per acre, the first cutting, and 5^ bushels of clover-seed after- 
wards—and that in a very unfavorable season for clover-seed." 

You will find that the farmers in England do not expect to make 
their land rich, by growing clover and selling the produce. After 
they have got their land rich, by good cultivation, and the liberal 
use of animal and artificial manures, they may expect a good crop 
of wheat from the roots of the clover. But they take good care to 
feed out the clover itself on the farm, in connection with turnips 
and oil-cake, and thus make rich manure. 



164 



TALKS ON MANUKES. 



And so it is in this country. Mucli as we hear about the value 
of clover for manure, even those who extol it the highest do not 
depend upon it alone for bringing up and maintaining the fertility 
of their farms. The men who raise the largest crops and make the 
most money by farming, do not sell clover-hay. They do not look 
to the roots of the clover for making a poor soil rich. They are, 
to a man, good cultivators. They work their land thoroughly and 
kill the weeds. They keep good stock, and feed liberally, and 
make good manure. They use lime, ashes, and plaster, and are 
glad to draw manure from the cities and villages, and muck from 
the swamps, and not a few of them buy artificial manures. In the 
hands of such farmers, clover is a grand renovating crop. It 
gathers up the fertility of the soil, and the roots alone of a 
large crop, often furnish food enough for a good crop of corn, 
potatoes, or wheat. But if your land was not in good heart to 
start with, you would not get the large crop of clover; and if you 
depend on the clover-roots alone, the time is not far distant when 
your large crops of clover will be things of the past. 

AMOUNT OF ROOTS LEFT IN THE SOIL BY DIFFERENT 

CROPS. 
"We have seen that Dr. Voelcker made four separate deter- 
minations of the amount of clover-roots left in the soil to the 
depth of six inches. It may be well to tabulate the figures obtained : 

CLOVEB-BOOTS, IN SIX INCHES OP SOIL, PER ACRE. 







Air-dry 

roots, 

per 

acre. 


Nitro- 
gen in 
roots, 
per 
acre. 


Phos- 
phoric 
acid in 

roots, 
per 

acre. 


No. 1. 
" 2. 

" 3. 
" 4. 

" 5. 


^ J Good Clover from brow of the hill 

^ J Good Clover from bottom of the field 

'^ 1 Thin " " brow " hill 

SI 

Heavy crop of first-year clover mown twice 


7705 
3920 

7569 
80o4 

8921 


100 
31 

61 
66 

24i 

51* 
191i 


27 


" 6. 


Heavy crop of first-year clover, mown once 
for hay, and then for seed 




" 7. 


German experiment, lOJ inches deep 


74f 



I have not much confidence in experiments of this kind, 
so easy to make a little mistake ; and when you take only a 
foot of land, as was the case with Nos. 5 and 6, the mistake 
tiplied by 43,560. Still, I give the table for what it is 



It is 
square 
is mul- 
worth. 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS. 165 

Nos. 1 and 2 are from a one-year-old crop of clover. The field 
was a calcareous clay soil. It was somewhat hilly ; or, perhaps, 
what we here, in Western New York, should call " rolling land." 
The soil on the brow of the hill, " was very stony at a depth of 
four inches, so that it could only with difficulty be excavated to 
six inches, when the bare limestone-rock made its appearance." 
A square yard was selected on this shallow soil, where the clover 
was good ; and the roots, air-dried, weighed at the rate of 7,705 lbs. 
per acre, and contained 100 lbs. of nitrogen. A few yards distance, 
on the same soil, where the clover was bad, the acre of roots con- 
tained only 31 lbs. of nitrogen per acre. 

So far, so good. We can well understand this result. Chemistry 
has little to do with it. There was a good stand of clover on the 
one plot, and a poor one on the other. And the conclusion to be 
drawn from it is, that it is well worth our while to try to secure a 
good catch of clover. 

''But, suppose," said the Doctor, "No. 2 had happened to have 
been pastured by sheep, and No. 1 allowed to go to seed, what 
magi3 there would have been in the above figures ! " 

Nos. 3 and 4 are from the same field, the second year. No. 4 is 
from a square yard of thin clover on the brow of the hill, and 
No. 3, from the richer, deeper land towards the bottom of the hill. 
There is very little difference between them. The roots of thin 
clover from the brow of the hill, contain five lbs. more nitrogen 
per acre, than the roots on the deeper soil. 

If we can depend on the figures, we may conclude that on our 
poor stony "knolls," the clover has larger and longer roots than 
on the richer parts of the field. We know that roots will run 
long distances and great depths in search of food and water. 

Nos. 5 and 6 are from a heavy crop of one-year-old clover. No. 
5 was mown twice for hay, producing, in the two cuttings, over 
four tons of hay per acre. No. 6 was in the same field, the only 
difference being that the clover, instead of being cut the second 
time for hay, was allowed to stand a few weeks longer to ripen its 
seed. You will see that the latter has more roots than the former. 
There are 24^ lbs. of nitrogen per acre in the one case, and 51i 
lbs. in the other. How far this is due to difference in the condition 
of the land, or to the difficulties in the way of getting out all the 
roots from the square yard, is a matter of conjecture. 

Truth to tell, I have very little confidence in any of these figures. 
It will be observed that I have put at the bottom of the table, the 
result of an examination made in Germany. In this case, the nitro- 
gen in the roots of an acre of clover, amounted to 191i lbs. per 



166 



TALKS ON MANUKES. 



acre. If we can depend on the figures, we must conclude that there 
were nearly eight times as much clover-roots per acre in the Ger- 
man field, as in the remarkably heavy crop of clover in the English 
field No. 5. 

" Yes," said the Deacon, " but the one was 10^ inches deep, and 
the other only six inches deep ; and besides, the German experi- 
ment includes the ' stubble ' with the roots." 

The Deacon is right ; and it will be well to give the complete 
table, as published in the American Agriculturist : 

TABLE SHOWING THE AMOUNT OF ROOTS AND STUBBLE LEFT PER ACRE BY DIFFER- 
ENT CROPS, AND THE AMOUNT OF INGREDIENTS WHICH THEY CONTAIN PER ACRE. 






Lucern (4 years old) 

Red-Clover (1 year old) , . . 
Esparsette ( 3 years old). 

Rye 

Swedish Clover 

Rape 

Oats 

Lupine 

Wheat 

Peas 

Serradella 

Buckwheat 

Barley 



,"^1 



s^ 



s'^^ 



,678.1 

,921.6 

,930.9 

.264.6 

,004.3 

,477. 

,331.9 

,520.9 

,476. 

.222.5 

,120.1 

,195.6 

.991.4 



C^ 



'^^ 



136.4 
191.6 
123.2 
65.3 
102.3 
56.5 
26.6 
62.2 
23.5 
55.6 
64.8 
47.9 






-§^ 



1,201.6 
1,919.9 
1,023.4 
1,747.8 
974.6 
622.3 
1,444.7 

550. 
1,089.8 
670.7 
545.6 
465.5 
391.1 



CONTENTS or THE ASHES, IN POUNDS, PER ACRE. 





1 


1 


1 


1 


r 




Lucern 


197.7 

262.9 

132.8 

73.2 

136.1 

163.9 

85.5 

80.5 

76.7 

71.7 

79.8 

80. 

42.2 


24.2 

48.4 
28.7 
14.3 
17.6 
12.9 
11.2 
11.2 
10.1 
11. 
13.4 
7.2 
5.5 


36.7 

58.3 
42.6 

31.2 

25.9 

34.7 

24.8 

16.5 

28.4 

11.2 

8.8 

8.8 

9.5 


26.4 

20.0 

13.8 

43.3 

5.7 

20.9 

18. 

3.5 

11. 

7. 

4.8 

4.2 

3.5 


18.7 
26.1 
20.6 
11.8 
13.2 
30.8 

8.8 

7. 

7.4 

9.4 

9. 

6.6 

5.5 


38.5 


Red-Clover 


74.8 


Esparsette 


29.7 


Rye 


24.4 


Swedish Clover 


24.2 


Rape 


31.9 


Oats 


29. 




13.8 


Wheat 


11.8 


Peas 


14.3 




18.4 


Buckwheat 


11. 


Barley 


11.2 



It may be presumed, that, while these figures are not absolutely^ 
they are relatively^ correct. In other words, we may conclude, 
that red-clover leaves more nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, 
in the roots and stubble per acre, than any other of the crops named. 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS. 167 

The gross amount of dry substance in the roots, and the gross 
amount of ash per acre, are considerably exaggerated, owing to the 
evidently large quantity of dirt attached to the roots and stubble. 
For instance, the gross amount of ash in Lucern is given as 1,201.6 
lbs. per acre ; while the total amount of lime, magnesia, potash, 
soda, sulphuric and phosphoric acids, is only 342.2 lbs. per acre, 
leaving 859.4 lbs. as sand, clay, iron, etc. Of the 1,919.9 lbs. of ash 
in the acre of clover-roots and stubble, there are 1,429.4 lbs. of 
sand, clay, etc. But even after deducting this amount of impuri- 
ties from a gross total of dry matter per acre, we still have 7,492.3 
lbs. of dry roots and stubble per acre, or nearly 3^ tons of dry roots 
per acre. This is a very large quantity. It is as much dry matter 
as is contained in 13 tons of ordinary farm-yard, or stable-manure. 
And these 3^ tons of dry clover-roots contain 191^ lbs. of nitrogen, 
which is as much as is contained in 19 tons of ordinary stable-ma- 
nure. The clover- roots also contain 74f lbs. of phosphoric acid per 
acre, or as much as is contained in from 500 to 600 lbs. of No. 1 
rectified Peruvian guano. 

" But the phosphoric acid," said the Doctor, " is not soluble in 
the roots." True, but it was soluble when the roots gathered it 
up out of the soil. 

" These figures," said the Deacon, " have a very pleasant look. 
Those of us who have nearly one-quarter of our land in clover 
every year, ought to be making our farms very rich." 

" It would seem, at any rate," said I, " that those of us who have 
good, clean, well-drained, and well-worked land, that is now pro- 
ducing a good growth of clover, may reasonably expect a fair crop 
of wheat, barley, oats, corn, or potatoes, when we break it up and 
plow under all the roots, which are equal to 13 or 19 tons of stable- 
manure per acre. Whether we can or can not depend on these 
figures, one thing is clearly proven, both by the chemist and the 
farmer, that a good clover-sod, on well-worked soil, is a good pre- 
paration for corn and potatoes." 

MANURES FOR WHEAT. 

Probably nine-tenths of all the wheat grown in Western New 
York, or the " Genesee country," from the time the land was first 
cleared until 1870, was raised without any manure being directly ap- 
plied to the land for this crop. Tillage and clover were what the 
farmers depended on. There certainly has been no systematic ma- 
nuring. The manure made during the winter, was drawn out in the 
spring, and plowed under for corn. Any manure made during the 
summer, in the yards, was, by the best farmers, scraped up and 



168 TALKS ON MANURES. 

spread on portions of the land sown, or to be sown, with wheat. 
Even so good a farmer and wheat-grower as John Johnston, 
rarely used manure, (except lime, and latterly, a little guano), 
directly for wheat. Clover and summer-fallowing were for many 
years the dependence of the "Western New York wheat-growers. 

" One of the oldest and most experienced millers of Western New 
York," remarked the Doctor, " once told me that ' ever since our 
farmers began to manure their land, the wheat-crop had deterio- 
rated, not only in the yield per acre, but in the quality and quantity 
of the flour obtained from it.' It seemed a strange remark to make ; 
but when he explained that the farmers had given up simimer- 
fallowing and plowing in clover, and now sow spring crops, to 
be followed by winter wheat with an occasional dressing of poor 
manure, it is easy to see how it may be true." 

*' Yes," said I, " it is not the manure that hurts the wheat, but 
the growth of spring crops and weeds that rob the soil of tar more 
plant-food than the poor, strawy manure can supply. We do not 
now, really, furnish the wheat-crop as much manure or plant-food 
as we formerly did when little or no manure was used, and when 
we depended on summer-fallowing and plowing in clover." 

We must either give up the practice of sowing a spring crop, 
before wheat, or we must make more and richer manure, or we must 
plow in more clover. The rotation, which many of us now adopt 
— corn, barley, wheat— is profitable, provided we can make our 
land rich enough to produce 75 bushels of shelled corn, 50 Dushels 
of barley, and 35 bushels of wheat, per acre, in three years. 

This can be done, but we shall either require a number of acres 
of rich low land, or irrigated meadow, the produce of which will 
make manure for the upland, or we shall have to purchase oil- 
cake, bran, malt-combs, or refuse beans, to feed out with our straw 
and clover-hay, or we must purchase artificial manures. Unless 
this is done, we must summer-fallow more, on the heavier clay 
^oils, sow less oats and barley ; or we must, on the lighter soils, 
raise and plow under more clover, or feed it out on the farm, being 
careful to save and apply the manure. 

" Better do both," said the Doctor." 

" How ? " asked the Deacon. 

"You had better make all the manure you can," continued the 
Doctor, " and buy artificial manures besides." 

" The Doctor is right," said I, " and in point of fact, our best 
farmers are doing this very thing. They are making more manure 
and buying more manure than ever before ; or, to state the matter 
correctly, they are buying artificial manures ; and these increase the 



EXPERIMENTS ON CLOVER-SOILS. 169 

crops, and the extra quantity of straw, corn, and clover, so ob- 
tained, enables them to make more manure. They get cheated 
sometimes in their purchases ; but, on the whole, the movement is a 
good one, and will result in a higher and better system of farming." 

I am amused at the interest and enthusiasm manifested by some 
of our farmers who have used artificial manures for a year or two. 
They seem to regard me as a sad old fogy, because I am now de- 
pending almost entirely on the manures made on the farm. Years 
ago, 1 was laughed at because I used guano and superphosphate. It 
was only yesterday, that a young farmer, who is the local agent of 
this neighborhood, for a manure manufacturer, remarked to me, 
" You have never used superphosphate. We sowed it on our wheat 
last year, and could see to the very drill mark how far it went. I 
would like to take your order for a ton. I am sure it would pay." 

" We are making manure cheaper than you can sell it to me, " I 
replied, " and besides, I do not think superphosphate is a good 
manure for wheat." — " Oh," he exclaimed, " you would not say so 
if you had ever used it." — " Why, my dear sir," said I, " I made 
tons of superphosphate, and used large quantities of guano before 
you were born ; and if you will come into the house, I will show 
you a silver goblet I got for a prize essay on the use of superphos- 
phate of lime, that I wrote more than a quarter of a century ago. I 
sent to New York for two tons of guano, and published the result 
of its use on this farm, before you were out of your cradle. And I 
had a ton or more of superphosphate made for me in 1856, and some 
before that. I have also used on this farm, many tons of superphos- 
phate and other artificial manures from different manufacturers, 
and one year I used 15 tons of bone-dust." 

With ready tact, he turned the tables on me by saying : " Now I 
can understand why your land is improving. It is because you 
have used superphosphate and bone-dust. Order a few tons." 

By employing agents of this kind, the manufacturers have suc- 
ceeded in selling the farmers of Western New York thousands of 
tons of superphosphate. Some fanners think it pays, and some 
that it does not. We are more likely to hear of the successes than 
of failures. Still there can be no doubt that superphosphate 
has, in many instances, proved a valuable and profitable manure 
for wheat in Western New York. 

From 200 to 300 lbs. are used per acre, and the evidence seems 
to show that it is far better to drill in the manure with the seed than 
to sow it broadcast. 



My own opinion is, that these superphosphates are not the most 



170 TALKS ON MANURES. 

economical artificial manures that could be used for wheat. They 
contain too little nitrogen. Peruvian guano containing nitrogen 
equal to 10 per cent of ammonia, would be, I think, a much more 
effective and profitable manure. 'But before we discuss this ques- 
tion, it will be necessary to study the results of actual experiments 
in the use of various fertilizers for wheat. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
LA WES AND GILBERT'S EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 

•I hardly know how to commence an account of the wonderful 
experiments made at Rothamsted, England, by John Bennett 
Lawes, Esq., and Dr. Joseph H. Gilbert. Mr. Lawes' first syste- 
matic experiment on wheat, commenced in the autumn of -1843. 
A field of 14 acres of rather heavy clay soil, resting on chalk, was 
selected for the purpose. Nineteen plots were accurately measured 
and staked off. The plots ran the long way of the field, and up a 
slight ascent. On each side of the field, alongside the plots, there 
was some land not included, the first year, in the experiment proper. 
This land was either left without manure, or a mixture of the 
manures used in the experiments was sown on it. 

I have heard it said that Mr. Lawes, at this time, was a believer 
in what was called "Liebig's Mineral Manure Theory." Liebig 
had said that " The crops on a field, diminish or increase in exact 
proportion to the diminution or increase of the mineral substances 
conveyed to it in manure." And enthusiastic gentlemen have been 
known to tell farmers who were engaged in drawing out farm -yard 
manure to their land, that they were wastmg their strength ; all 
they needed was the mineral elements of the manure. "And 
you might," they said, " burn your manure, and sow the ashes, and 
thus save much time and labor. The ashes will do just as much 
good as the manure itself." 

Whether Mr. Lawes did, or did not entertain such an opinion, I 
do not know. It looks as though the experiments the first year or 
two, were made with the expectation that mineral manures, or the 
ashes of plants, were wlmt the wheat needed. 

The following table gives the kind and quantities of manures 
used per acre, and the yield of wlieat per acre, as carefully cleaned 
for market. Also the total weight of grain per acre, and the 
weight of straw and chaff per acre. 



EXPEKIMENTS ON WHEAT. 



171 









)fz^^cfi'iaiai>(^03toi-^oiDCo<ia>ai^03Ki^o 



Plots. 



O (t) • 






3 • O0OiO2O5' 

O • H-^ W ox WT 









s :: 



C0O5M0SC005COWO5U;Oi03>JiO5-1 
Ot 31 OT OT Ol Ci* 2 S S2 S ^ ^il >^ i:il 2 

ooooooooooooooo 





Farmyard 
Manure. 




Farmyard 
Manure 
Ashes.-^ 


il 
pi - 

b 


Silicate of 
Potass:' 

Phosphate 
of Potass.^ 






S 1* 



Phosphate 
of Soda.^ 



of 
Magnesia^ 

Superphos- 

phite of 

Lime.^ 



Sulphate 

of 
Amrrvonia. 

Rape Cake 



xs^S^-^^-'^-^^-'>-'>-''-''-"-"-"-"-"-"-'^'*'-'"^^ 
*^000«dOiC5W--lOTCOCnClTinir»>;».CjiOaj;D=o 



t^H^tlllai^i^ 






per 



Offal 
Corn.^ 






Corn. 



-■{a;^sao^^-lOl-^o^-'C505-lO-'o^^-•>ocoJS 



ClSl-l■^Ji-JC>^^-'^^|-J•05"0;l-^l-l005DO-f^sc^^' 



>o>OQOoo))(^^s^9CCl^scorf^. 



Oi^OSOil-i l-l M. CO I COI-iCO; 

ct^coco^-^ I I »s III oo__co, 



Cbm. 



I! 



^ o 

2 I*- 



05 ^ 



1^ 



> ^ 

a 



Straiv and\ h 

~Total Pto-\ 
duce {Corn' 
and 
Straw). ' 






straw and ^ w >► i 

c^qif. : « ^ S I 

_i 2 w 

Total Pro- • *^ ^ ' 
duce. M 



tsrfxtsi-'rfk.iji.ooooioiinooioi^rfi.ji.iuot 



Corr? to 100 
Straw. 



172 TALKS ON MANURES. 

These were the results of the harvest of 1844. The first year of 
these since celebrated experiments. 

If Mr. Lawes expected that the crops would be in proportion to 
the minerals supplied in the manure, he must have been greatly- 
disappointed. The plot without manure of any kind, gave 15 
bushels of wheat per acre; 700 lbs. of superphosphate of lime, 
made from burnt bones, produced only 33 lbs. or about half a 
bushel more grain per acre, and 4 lbs. less straw than was obtained 
without manure. 640 lbs. of superphosphate, and 65 lbs. of com- 
mercial sulphate of ammonia (equal to about 14 lbs. of ammonia), 
gave a little over 194- bushels of dressed wheat per acre. As com- 
pared with the plot having 700 lbs. of superphosphate per acre, this 
14 lbs. of available ammonia per acre, or, say ll^ lbs. nitrogen, 
gave an increase of 324 lbs. of grain, and 252 lbs. of straw, or a 
total increase of 576 lbs. of grain and straw. 

On plot No. 19, 81 lbs. of sulphate ammonia, with minerals, pro- 
duces 24i bushels per acre. This yield is clearly due to the am- 
monia. 

The rape-cake contains about 5 per cent of nitrogen, and is also 
rich in minerals and carbonaceous matter. It gives an increase, but 
not as large in proportion to the nitrogen furnished, as the sul- 
phate of ammonia. And the same remarks apply to the 14 tons 
of farm-yard manure. 

We should have expected a greater increase from such a liberal 
dressing of barn-yard manure. I think the explanation is this: 

transparent glass, slightly deliquescent in the air, which was ground to a pow- 
der under edge-stones. 

3 The manures termed superphosphate of lime, phosphate of potass, phosphate 
of soda, and phosphate of magnesia, were made by acting upon bone-ash by 
means of sulphuric acid in the first instance, and in the case- of the alkali salts 
and the magnesian one neutralizing the compound thus obtained by means of 
cheap preparations of the respective bases. For the superphosphate of lime, 
the proportions were .5 parts bone-asli, 3 parts water, and 3 parts sulphuric acid 
of sp. gr. 1.84; and for the phosphates of potass, soda, and magnesia, they 
were 4 parts bone-ash, water as needed, 3 parts sulphuric acid of sp. gr. 1.84, and 
equivalent amounts, respectively, of pearl-ash, soda-ash, or a mixture of 1 
part medicinal carbonate of magnesia, and 4 parts magnesian limestone. The 
mixtures, of course, all lost weight considerably by the evolution of water and 
carbonic acid. 

< Made with unburnt bones. 

^ In this first season, neither the weight nor the measure of the off"al corn was 
recorded separately ; and in former papers, the bushels and pecks of total corn 
(including oS^al) have erroneously been given as dressed corn. To bring the 
records more in conformity with those relating to the other years. 5 per cent, 
by weight, has been deducted from the total corn previously stated as dressed 
corn, and is recorded as off'al corn ; this being about the probable proportion, 
judging from the character of the season, the bulk of the crop, and the weight 
per bushel of the dressed corn. Although not strictly correct, the statements of 
dressed corn, as amended in this somewhat arbitrary way, will approximate 
more nearly to the truth, and be more comparable with those relating to other 
seasons, than those hitherto recorded. 



EXPEBIMENTS ON WHEAT. 173 

The manure had not been piled. It was probably taken out 
fresh from the yard (this, at any rate, was the case when I was at 
Rothamsted), and plowed under late in the season. And on this 
heavy land, manure will lie buried in the soil for months, or, if un- 
disturbed, for years, without decomposition. In other words, while 
this 14 tons of barn-yard manure, contained at least 150 lbs. of 
nitrogen, and a large quantity of minerals and carbonaceous 
matter, it did not produce a bushel per acre more than a manure 
containing less than 12 lbs. of nitrogen. And on plot 19, a manure 
containing less than 15 lbs. of available nitrogen, produced nearly 
4 bushels per acre more wheat than the barn-yard manure contain- 
ing at least ten times as much nitrogen. 

There can be but one explanation of this fact. The nitrogen in 
the manure lay dormant in this heavy soil. Had it been a light 
sandy soil, it would have decomposed more rapidly and produced 
a better effect. 

As we have before stated, John Johnston finds, on his clay-land, 
a far greater effect from manure spread on the surface, where it 
decomposes rapidly, than when the manure is plowed under. 

The Deacon was looking at the figures in the table, and not pay- 
ing much attention to our talk. " What could a man be thinking 
about," he said, " to burn 14 tons of good manure ! It was a great 
waste, and I am glad the ashes did no sort of good." 

After the wheat was harvested in 1844, the land was immedi- 
ately plowed, harrowed, etc. ; and in a few weeks was plowed 
again and sown to wheat, the different plots being kept separate, 
as before. 

The following table shows the manures used this second year, 
and the yield per acre : 



174 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



Plots. 






pj CD 

(J 2. 






ss:§a 



"^1 

o B 
P 



03: 



g2 



1 1* ts. 



1 iNi 05 05 ^^ 1-^ I-' 
. *i. 00 -JD to 6S tS 



UTOt 

00 



«: 






^ct> 



Fanmjard 
Manure. 



Silicate of 
Potass. 1 



Phosphate of 
Potass. "^ 



IS rphosph'te 
of Lime.'^ 



o S" Bone-ash. 



B' 



Muriatic 

Acid. 



2.5^ 



Guano. 1 



iSulphate of 
Ammonm. 



Muriate of 
Ammonia. 



p a" 



Carbonate of 
Ammonia 



Baije Cake. 



I Tapioca. 



^scooolocol-l0^scoco>-l0^s^ao5^^^^>oo^-'0o 



-7 3V OT O^ 7-1 75 3^ i" P P GO 

o o L' 'x CO b» in io is o CO 



c;ioiototo»c;totc;totoi^ 

p -3 -J -q -J 00 Oi p 4- p o^ 

co_o CO co^ o 01 00 bo br 1^ 



jsas^^g 



►-1 ►-* »a H-i H-i ' 



-^ OT W; Wi ^^ IJ-* *-J WJ r^ 



--. '-<^ L-- CO CO c; 05 cn *x ci g* 
— " ' ■ h-t H-' 00 :d tB 



e^ 


-1 


§ 


%\ 






s: 


^ 


<<s 


g} 


W'ght ^ 


;;! 


Bushel. 1 ■ 1 


Offal Cor 


«. 



-1 3i OD -3 J- GO ► 
, 1-1 00 -5 CO OS -3 ► 

■• s^ ia I-' ts H-' » > 






C0*-0SCO4^i^0SC04^. 

o--'>-'o-^hb--oo»coocr. c;t 

h(i.0H305'-'>&O5CH4i*-O;G0 



C0COCO05»^SC0t«05OS0Si— ' 

■~~. tosi 01 oi cTi ~i to ^' ^s a" 
05,^*^0000:-^*-^«-iai 
Oscorfi.;Oi+^OSM'OT^-<l- 



Chaff. 

Tota^ Pro~- 
d^ice {Corn 
and Straw). 



S H 



c >• 



M 






^ 



7b«a? Com.: q 









05 35<- 
CJT -I O ai 00 05 o 

>f>.co -" 



) -J ^s -5 ^s to ^ 



ococo^-i*.cc?D|eco. J^i-ii;°^ 



». OS :0 05 >£^ OS or 

1 OS 00 J^ ^s CO '~ 



or OS 



^yco-3.;-.:o<>s.*-co^s^3^*i■3:^-^ 



or CO CO 00 AS tn 



or OODC 
M. OS -3 I 



50 p I-* Cf 1-* ^ p .» * -s ^ tso^y-^f^it^p-pccTi^ip 
■-CJ l-i Vs Vo '>-•■ "00 t o o bo CO CO Vs b co U Va ^ -^ --> •-= ro to 

-i -3 00 OS i-i OS O 




00 o CO >t^ 00 »a -1 p kf^ pT p 

Vo t« o ^ *^ o >-' '►&. 01 bo ji. w <© o OS > 



OS OS '-' ^^ ^ 'y 



6'(?7'«. ^0 100 
Straw. 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 175 

The season of 1845 was more favorable for wheat, than that of 
1844, and the crops on all the plots were better. On plot No. 3, 
which had no manure last year, or this, the yield is 23 bushels per 
acre, against 15 bushels last year. 

Last year, the 14 tons of barn-yard manure gave an increase of 
only 5|r bushels per acre. This year it gives an increase of nearly 
9 bushels per acre. 

"Do you mean," said the Deacon, "that this plot, No. 2, had 
14 tons of manure in 1844, and 14 tons of manure again in 1845 ? " 

" Precisely that. Deacon," said I, •' and this same plot has receiv- 
ed this amount of manure every year since, up to the present time 
— for these same experiments are still continued from year to year 
at Rothamsted." 

" It is poor farming," said the Deacon, ''and I should think the 
land would get too rich to grow wheat." 

"It is not so," said I, "and the fact is an interesting one, and 
teaches a most important lesson, of whicn, more hereafter." 

Plot 5, last year, received 700 lbs. of superphosphate per acre. 
This year, this plot was divided ; one half was left without ma* 
nure, and the other dressed with 252 lbs. of pure carbonate of 
ammonia per acre. The half without manure, (5a), did not pro- 
duce quite as much grain and straw as the plot which had received 
no manure for two years in succession. But the wheat was of 
better quality, weighing 1 lb. more per bushel than the other. 
Still it is sufficiently evident that superphosphate of lime did no 
good so far as increasing the growth was concerned, either the first 
year it was applied, or the year following. 

The carbonate of ammonia was dissolved in water and sprinkled 
over the growing wheat at three diffei-ent times during the spring. 
You see this manure, which contains no mineral matter at all, gives 
an increase of nearly 4 bushels of grain per acre, and an increase 
of 887 lbs. of straw. 

" Wait a moment," said the Deacon, "is not 887 lbs. of straw ta 

2 The manures termed snpprphosphate of lim« and phosphate of potass, were 
made hy actinof upon bone-ash by means of sulpliuric acid, and in the ca-e of 
the potass salt neutralizing the compound thus obtained, hv means of pearl-ash. 
For the su'terphoshate of lime, the proportions were, 5 parts bone-ash. 3 parts 
water, and 8 part.'^ sul|)huric acid of sp. gr. 1.84 : and for the phosphate of potass, 
4 parts bone ash. water as needed. 9, parts sulphuric acid of sp. trr. 1.84; and an 
equivalent amount of pearl-ash. The mixtures, of course, lost weight consider- 
abl.y by the evolution of water and carbonic acid. 

3 The medicinal carbonate of ammonia; it was dissolved in water and top* 
aress<^d. 

^ * Plot 5. was 2 lands wide fin after years, respectively, .5a and hh) : S' consist- 
ing of 2 alternate onf^-fourth lengths across both lands, and 5^ of the 2 remain- 
ing one-fourth lengths. 
^ Top-dressed at once. « Top-dressed at 4 intei-vals. i Peruvian, s Ichaboe, 



176 TALKS ON MANURES. 

4 bushels of grain an unusually large proportion of straw to grain ? 
I have heard you say that 100 lbs. of straw to each bushel of 
wheat is about the average. And according to this experiment, 
the carbonate of cmmonia produced over 200 lbs. of straw to a 
bushel of grain. How do you account for this." 

*' It is a general rule," said 1, "that the heavier the crop, the 
greater is the proportion of straw to grain. On the no-manure 
plot, we have, this year, 118 lbs. of straw to a bushel of dressed 
grain. Taking this as the standard, you will find that the increase 
from manures is proportionally greater in straw than in grain. 
Thus in the increase of barn-yard manure, this year, we have 
about 133 lbs. of straw to a bushel of grain. ,1 do not believe there 
is any manure that will give us a large crop of grain without a 
still larger crop of straw. There is considerable difference, in this 
respect, between different varieties of wheat. Still, I like to see a 
good growth of straw." 



*'Itis curious," said the Doctor, " that 3 cwt. of ammonia-salts 
alone on plots 9 and 10 should produce as much wheat as was 
obtained from plot 3, where 14 tons of barn-yard manure had been 
applied two years in succession. I notice that on one plot, the 
ammonia-salts were applied at once, in the spring, while on the 
other plot they were sown at four different times — and that the 
former gave the best results." 

The only conclusion to be drawn from this, is, that it is desirable 
to apply the manure early in the spring — or better still, in the 
autumn. 

" You are a great advocate of Peruvian guano," said the Deacon, 
'*and yet 3 cwt of Peruvian guano on Plot 13, only produced an 
increase of two bushels and 643 lbs. of straw per acre. The guano 
at $60 per ton, would cost $9.00 per acre. This will not pay." 

This is an unusually small increase. The reason, probably, is to 
be found in the fact that the manure and seed were not sown until 
March, instead of in the autumn. The salts of ammonia are quite 
soluble and act quickly ; while the Peruvian guano has to decom- 
pose in the soil, and consequently needs to be applied earlier, 
especially on clay land. 

" I do not want you," said the Deacon, " to dodge the question 
why an application of 14 tons of farmyard-manure per acre, every 
year for over thirty years, does not make the land too rich for 
wheat." 

" Possibly," said I, " on light, sandy soil, such an annual dressing 
of manure would in the course of a few years make the land too 



EXPERIMENTS OX WHEAT. 177 

rich for wheat. But on a clayey soil, such is evidently not the case. 
And tne fact is a very important one. When we apply manure, 
our object should be to make it as available as possible. Nature 
preserves or conserves the food of plants. The object of agricul- 
ture is to use the food of plants for our own advantage. 

"Please be a little more definite," said the Deacon, " for I must 
confess I do not quite see the significance of your remarks." 

" What he means," said the Doctor, " is this : If you put a quan- 
tity of soluble and available manure on land, and do not sow any 
crop, the manure will not be wasted. The soil will retain it. It 
will change it from a soluble into a comparatively insoluble form. 
Had a crop been sown the first year, the manure would do far more 
good than it will the next year, and yet it may be that none of the 
manure is lost. It is merely locked up in the soil in such a form 
as will prevent it from running to waste. If it was not for this 
principle, our lands would have been long ago exhausted of all 
their available plant-food." 

" I think I understand," said the Deacon ; *' but if what you say 
is true, it upsets many of our old notions. We have thought it de- 
sirable to plow under manure, in order to prevent the ammonia 
from escaping. You claim, I believe, that there is little danger of 
any loss from spreading manure on the surface, and I suppose you 
would have us conclude that we make a mistake in plowing it . 
under, as the soil renders it insoluble." 

" It depends a good deal," said I, " on the character of the soil. 
A light, sandy soil will not preserve manure like a clay soil. But 
it is undoubtedly true that our aim in all cases should be to apply 
manure in such a form and to such a crop as will give us the great- 
est immediate benefit. Plowing under fresh manure every year for 
wheat is evidently not the best way to get the greatest benefit from 
it. But this is not the place to discuss this matter. Let as look 
at the result of Mr, Lawes' experiments on wheat the third year : " 



178 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Experiments at Kothamsted on the Growth op 
table iii.— makurbs and produce; 3rd season, 1845-6. 





Manures per Acre. 




j^ 


|2il-. 


S L^ 




; , Superphosphate: g ; j^ 






!^ 


ts 1«< 




j 1 of Lime. 


^ ^ 




* 






i 


1 ii 


1 


1 


Ilk 


It? 

Hi 


■p 




I 




Tons. 




lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. libs. 


lbs. 







.. 




336 








., 






.. 








1 








,. 






_ 




224 












2 


14 




























3 


Unma 


nured. 


• • 


• • 


.^ 


.♦ 




.• 


.. 






.. 


.. 


_ 


4 




•^ 


.. 


- 


• • 


.. 


.. 


.. 


224 




224 


224 


.. 


•• 


Hi 




Straw 


r •• 


•• 


•• 


•• 




•' 








2241 






Hi 




Ash. 


_, 


... 








.. 












448 








.. 














,. 


2241 




448 


6a 






448 










.. 














66 


.. 




448 


.. 














.. 


112 


112 




7a 






448! .. 








.. 












448 


76 


.. 


.. 


448 .. 


•• 




.. 


•• 








112 


112 


448 


8a 












., 






224 










448 


8& 


,, 






.. 


,. 


.. 






224 






112 


112 




9a 




.. 










., 


.. 












448 


96 






• • 


... 


... 


.. 




,. 






.. 224 




448 


10a 
















.. 






.. 224 






106 


Unma 


uured. 




'• 


• • 


• • 


.. 


.. 


. 






• • 


.. 


11a 


















224 ; 224 






448 


116 






... 












224 224 


.. 112 


112 




12a 










,. 




180 




224 i 224 






448 


126 














180 




224 i 224 


.. 112 


112 




13a 












200 






224 224 






448 


136 








.. 




200 


_ 




224 224 


.. li2 


112 




14a 
















84 


224 224 






448 


146 


-• 


... 


... 


-• 


•♦ 






84 


224 


224 


.. ,112 


112 




15a 






.. 












224 


.. 224 224 




448 


156 


.. 






•• 


2JM 


•• 


.. 


.. 


224 




224 


224 


•• 


448 


16a 




,. 








67 


60 


84 


224 '■ 224 


.. 






448 


166 


,^ 










67 


60 


84 


224 224 




224 




448 


17a 






.. 


.. 




67 


60 


84 


224 224 




112 


112 


448 


176 


.. 






.. 




67 


60 


84 1 224 224 




224 


.. 




18:z 






,. 






67 


60 


84 1 924 224 




112 


112 




186 


... 




•• 






67 


60 


84 224 224 








.. 


19 
















.. 112 .. 


112 


112 




448 


20 
















1 










21V 


Mixtu 


re of the residue of most of the other manures. 










22 








• • ' I 



> Top-dressed in the Spring. 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 

Wheat, Tear apter Tear, on the same Land. 
manures and seed (old red lammas), sown autumn, 1845. 



179 







Produce per 


Acre, etc. 


Increase ^ Acre 
BY Manure. 


^-8 






Dressed Corn. 








^ 






. 


g 


^ 


■2» 
1 




1 


si 

e 

i 


|l 




6 


jl 


i 


1' 


25 
1 




Bush.P'cks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs 


lbs. 









1 

2 
8 


28 


ll 


G2.3! 134 


1906 


2561 


4467 


699 


1048 


1747 


7.3 


74.4 


22 


nf 


6-2.61 120 


1509 


1953 


3462 


302 


440 


742 


8 1 


27 
17 


Of 
3J 


63.0 
63.8 


113 
64 


1826 
1207 


2454 
1513 


4280 
2720 


619 


941 


1560 


6!6 74!4 
7.4 79.7 


4 


25 


3i 


63.5 


130 


1777 


2390 


4167 


570 


877 


1447 


7.8 74.3 


H^ 


19 


2* 


63.7 


87 


1305 


1541 


2846 


98 


28 


126 


.. 84.6 
.. 79.1 
.. 192.8 
.. 71.6 
7.0 S3 fi 


27 





63.0 


126 


1827 


2309 


4136 


620 


796 


1416 


«>\l 


23 


n 


63.4 


100 


1598 


1721 


3319 


391 


208 


599 


30 


?f 


63.3 165 


2076 


2901 


4977 


869 


1388 


2257 


6a 


20 


^ 


63.7| 102 


1400 


1676 


3076 


193 


163 


356 


6b 


29 


Si 


63.5 114 


1967 


2571 


4.538 


760 


10.58 


1818 


5.3 


76.5 


la 


22 


i* 


63.0 


97 


1534 


1968 


8502 


327 


405 


732 


6 8 


77 9 


lb 


31 


3 


63.4 


150 


2163 


3007 


5170 


956 


1494 


2450 


7^5 


72.6 


8a 


22 


s 


63.5 


101 


1.549 


1963 


8512 


342 


450 


792 


7.1 


78.9 


86 


29 


St 


63.6 


132 


1988 


2575 


4563 


781 


1062 


1843 


7.2 


77.2 


9a 


23 


of 


63.0 


122 


1614 


2033 


3647 


407 


520 


927 


7.9 


79^4 


9* 


28 


3i 


fA 


114 


1942 


2(i03 


4545 


735 


1090 


1825 


7^0 


74!6 


10a 


27 


it 


63.6 109 


1850 


2244 


4094 


643 


731 


1874 


64 


82 4 


106 


17 


^ 


G3.8 92 


1216 


1455 


2671 


9 


-58 


-49 


7."8 


83!6 


11a 


23 


Jl? 


63.3' 145 


1628 


2133 


3761 


421 


620 


1041 


9.8 


76 3 


116 


30 


?t 


G3.2 1.55 


2055 


2715 


4770 


848 


1202 


2050 


6!l 


75!? 


12a 


24 


l\ 


63.0, 125 


1661 


2163 


3824 


454 


650 


1104 


7^9 


76 8 


126 


28 


l^ 


63.4 1.36 


19.55 


2554 


4509 


748 


1041 


1789 


74 


76.5 


13a 


24 





63.51 136 


1660 


2327 


3987 


453 


814 


1267 


91 


71.3 


136 


29 


l\ 


03.2 138 


1998 


2755 


4753 


791 


1242 


2033 


7.3 


72.'5 


14a 


23 


l\ 


63.0: 117 


1605 


2031 


3636 


898 


518 


916 


7 7 


79 


146 


26 


2i 


63.4 124 


1812 


2534 


4356 


605 


1021 


1626 


7.4 


71.5 


15a 


31 


n 


62.5 147 


2112 


2936 


5048 


905 


1423 


2328 


7 5 


719 


156 


27 


2i 


63.0 117 


1861 


2513 


4374 


654 


1000 


1654 


5.9 


74.0 


16a 


23 


3 


62.5' 108 


1502 


2067 


3659 


385 


554 


989 


7.0 


77.0 


166 


30 


L 


62.7; 122 


2019 


2S3G 


4855 


812 


1323 


2135 


6.6 


71.2 


17a 


33 


t* 


62.8 129 


2241 


3278 


5519 


1034 


1765 I 


2799 


5.8 


68.3 


176 


SO 


2 


63.0 113 


2034 


2784 


4818 


827 


1271 1 


2098 


5.9 


73.0 


18a 


31 





63.8 103 


9048 


2a38 


4886 


841 


1325 


2166 


5.1 


72.2 


186 


21 


1 


62.0, 157 


1474 


1893 


3367 


267 


380 


647 


6.6 


77.1 


20) 

21 I 

22 i 


28 


3 


62.0 107 


1889 


2425 


4314 


682 


912 


1594 


5.8 


77.9 



180 TALKS ON MANURES. 

This year, the seed and manures were sown in the autumn. And 
I want the Deacon to look at plot 0. 3 cwt. of Peruvian guano 
here gives an increase of 10^ bushels of wheat, and 1,048 lbs. of 
straw per acre. This will pay loell^ even on the wheat aloue. But 
in addition to this, we may expect, in our ordinary rotation of 
crops, a far better crop of clover where the guano was used. 

In regard to some of the results this year, Messrs. Lawes and 
Gilbert have the following concise and interesting remarks : 

*'At this third experimental harvest, we have on the continu- 
ously unmanured plot, namely. No. 3, not quite 18 bushels of 
dressed corn, as the normal produce of the season ; and by its side 
we have on plot 105 — comprising one-half of the plot 10 of the 
previous years, and so highly manured by ammoniacal salts in 1845, 
but now unmanured — rather more than 17^ bushels. The near 
approach, again, to identity of result from the two unmanured 
plots, at once gives confidence in the accuracy of the experiments, 
and shows us how effectually the preceding crop had, in a practi- 
cal point of view, reduced the plots, previously so differently cir- 
cumstanced both as to manure and produce, to something like an 
uniform standard as regards their grain-producing qualities. 

" Plot 2 has, as before, 14 tons of farm-yard manure, and the 
produce is 211 bushels, or between 9 and 10 bushels more than 
without manure of any kind. 

" On plot 10a, which in the previous year gave by ammoniacal 
salts alone, a produce equal to that of the farm-yard manure, we 
have again a similar result: for two cwts, of sulphate of ammonia 
has now given 1,850 lbs. of total corn, instead of 1,826 lbs., which 
is the produce on plot 3. The straw of the latter, is,, however, 
slightly heavier than that by the ammoniacal salt. 

" Again, plot 5(7, which was in the previous season unmanured^ 
was now subdivided: on one-half of it (namely, 5a*) we have the 
ashes of wheat-straw alone, by which there is an increase of rather 
more than one busbsl per acre of dressed com; on the other half 
(or 5a^) we have, besides the straw-ashes, two cwts. of sulphate of 
ammonia put on as a top-dressing : two cwts. of sulphate of am- 
monia have, in this case, only increased the produce beyond that 
of 5a* by 7| bushels of corn and 768 lbs. of straw, instead of by 
9V4 bushels of corn and 789 lbs. of straw, which was the increase 
obtained by the same amount of ammoniacal salt on 10a, as com- 
pared with 105. 

" It will be observed, however, that in the former case the am- 
moniacal salts were top-dressed, but in the latter they were drilled 
at the time of sowing the seed ; and it will be remembered thai in 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 181 

1845 the result was better as to corn on plot 9, where the salts were 
sown earlier, than on plot 10, where the top-dressing extended far 
into the spring. We have had several direct instances of this kind in 
our experience, and we would give it as a suggestion, in most cases 
applicable, that manures for wheat, and especially ammoniacal 
ones, should be applied before or at the time the seed is sown ; 
for, although the apparent luxuriance of the crop is greater, and 
the produce of straw really heavier, by spring rather than autumn 
sowiugs of Peruvian guano and other ammoniacal manures, yet we 
believe that that of the corn will not be increased in an equivalent 
degree. Indeed, the success of the crop undoubtedly depends very 
materially on the progress of the underground growth during the 
winter months; and this again, other things being equal, upon the 
quantity of available nitrogenous constituents within the soil, with- 
out a liberal provision of which, the range of the fibrous feeders 
of the plant will not be such, as to take up the minerals which the 
soil is competent to supply, and in such quantity as will be required 
during the after progress of the plant for its healthy and favorable 
growth." 

These remarks are very suggestive and deserve special attention. 
" The next result to be noticed," continue Messrs. Lawes and 
Gilbert, "is that obtained on plot G, now also divided into two 
equal portions designated respectively Qa and ()h. Plot No. 6 had 
for the crop of 1844, superphosphate of lime and the phosphate of 
magnesia manure, and for that of 1845, superphosphate of lime, 
rape-cake, and ammoniacal salts. For this, the third season, it 
was devoted to the trial of the wheat-manure manufactured under 
the sanction of Professor Liebig, and patented in this country, 

*' Upon plots 6'/, four cwts. per acre of the patent wheat-manure 
were used, which gave 201- bushels, or rather more than two 
bushels beyond the produce of the unmanured plot ; but as the 
manure contained, besides the minerals peculiar to it, some nitro- 
genous compounds, giving oft a very perceptible odor of ammonia, 
some, at least, of the increase would be due to that substance. On 
plot 6&, however, the further addition of one cwt. each of sulphate 
and muriate of ammonia to tliis so-called 'Mineral Manure,' gives 
a produce of 29i bushels. In other words, the addition of ammoni- 
acal salt, to Liebig's mineral manure has increased the produce by 
very nearly 9 bushels per acre beyontl that of the mineral manure 
alone, whilst the increase obtained over the unmanured plot, by 
14 tons of farm-yard manure, was only 9|- bushels ! 

The following table gives the results of the experiments the 
fourth jedLi, 1846-7. 



182 



TALKS OX MANURES. 
EXPEREMEXTS AT ROTHAMSTED ON THE GROWTH OF 
TABLE IV.— MANURES AND PBODUCE ; 4TH SEASON, 1846-7. 





Manures per Acre. 




g 




Superphosphate of Lime. 


S 

^ 

'^.S 








1 


1 








1 




1^ 


1 




^ 


1 


1 


1^ 


^ 

« 


ii 


^1 
IS 


1 




Tons. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 







600 


200 




200 


350 


50 


•• 


2 


14 


.. 














3 


Unmanured. 














4 


.. 




200 


.. 


200 


300 


.. 


.. 


5a 


., 




200 


200 




150 


150 




56 


,, 




200 


200 




150 


150 


500 


6a 












150 


150 




66 












150 


150 




7o 






[[ 


]". 




150 


150 




76 












150 


150 




8a 






200 


200 




150 


150 


500 


86 






200 


200 




200 


200 




HJ 


•• 






•• 




150 


150 


2240 


96 


,, 










150 


150 


_, 


lOo 


[', 










150 


150 




106 






•• 






150 


150 


•• 


11a 






100 


100 




150 


150 




116 


,. 




100 


100 




150 


150 


[[ 


12a 






100 


100 




150 


150 


,, 


116 






100 


100 




150 


150 




13a 






100 


100 




150 


150 


[. 


136 


,^ 




100 


100 




150 


150 




14a 


'.] 




100 


100 




150 


150 




146 


•• 




100 


100 




150 


150 




15a 






200 




200 


300 




500 


156 






200 


• • 


200 


300 


.. 


500 


16a 






100 


100 




150 


150 




166 






100 


100 




150 


150 


^_ 


17a 


]"_ 




100 


100 




150 


150 




176 






100 


100 




200 


200 


]\ 


18a 






100 


100 




150 


150 




186 






100 


100 




150 


150 


" 


19 






100 




100 


300 




500 


20 


Unmanured. 










.. 




21 I 
22 


Mixture of the 


residue of most of the other i 


uanures. 







EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 

Wheat, Teak after Tear, on the same Land. 

MAinJBKS AKD SEED (OLD RED LAMMAS), SOTTN END Or OCTOBEB, 1846. 



183 





Produce per Acre, &c. 


Increase ^ Acre 
Bt Manure. 


j 






Dressed Corn. \ 


i 




^^ 








^' 










1 




1 


jl 

i ^ 


J 


{ 


1 


§ 
■2 

1 


* 


^ 


1 


■S 




Bush.P'cks. 


lbs.' lbs. 


Iba. 


lbs. lbs. 


lbs. 1 lbs. 


lbs. 









30 


2i 


61.1 


156 


2031 


3277 ; 5308 


908 1375 


2283 


8.2 


61.9 




32 


1 


'61.2 


147 


2119 ' 3735 5S54 


996 ■ 1833 


28£9 


7.2 


56.7 


3 


29 


3i 


G2.3 


117 


1931 3628 5::09 


858 i 1726 


2584 


6.2 


54.6 


3 


16 


3* 


61.0 


95 


1 1123 


i 1902 3025 




.• 




8.9 


59.0 


4 


27 


U 


61.9 


82 


1780 


2948 4728 


657 


1046 


1703 


4.7 


60.3 


6a 


29 





61.8 


130 


1921 


3412 5333 


798 


1510 


; 2309 


7.1 


56.3 


56 


32 


2 


61.4 


1.36 


2132 


3721 5&j3 


1009 


1819 


2827 ; 6.6 


57.2 


6a 


24 


3i 


62.1 


122 


1663 2786 4449 


540 


884 


1424 : 7.8 


59.6 


66 


24 


U 


61.6 


127 


1632 


2303 44:35 


509 


901 


1410 t 8.2 


58.2 


la 


27 


3i 


61.7 


118 


1834 


3151 4985 


711 


1249 


1160 6.8 


58.2 


lb 


25 


H 


61.5 


125 


1682 


2953 ; 4635 


559 


1051 


1610 7.9 


56.9 


6a 


32 


u 


62.1 


102 


2115 


3683 5798 


992 


1781 


2773 5.5 


57.4 


6b 


30 


3 


61.7 


123 


2020 


3720 5749 


897 


1818 


2715 


6.3 


54.3 


H^ 


22 


3 


62. 5 




1477 


2506 39a3 


228 


004 






53.9 


26 


2 


61.0 


,_ 


1755 


3052 4897 


632 


1150 






57.5 


% 


26 





61.3 


123 


1717 


2858 


4575 


594 


956 


1550 




60.1 


10a 


25 


3 


61.5 


118 


1702 


2891 


4593 


579 


989 


15G8 


7.3 


58.8 


10b 


25 


2i 


61.2 


133 


1705 


2874 


4579 


582 


972 


1554 


8.2 


59.3 


11a 


30 


3i 


61.6 


142 


2044 


3517 


5561 


921 


1615 


2536 


6.3 


59.5 


lib 


29 


H 


61.8 


123 


1941 


3203 


5144 


818 


1301 


2119 


6.7 ' 


60.6 


12a 


29 


2 


62.0 


124 


1953 


3452 


5405 


830 


1550 


2?.80 6.6 t 


.57.1 


12b 


27 


0* 


61.8 


121 


1796 


3124 


4920 


673 


1222 


1895 7.1 i 


57 4 


13a 


29 


2i 


62.5 


108 


1959 


3306 


52';5 


836 


1404 


2^0 5.5 


57.3 


136 


27 


iJ i 


62.3 


96 


1801 


3171 


4972 


678 


12^)9 


1947 5.3 


56.7 


14a 


23 


Of 


33.8 


175 


1944 


3362 


5306 


821 


1460 


2281 9.7 


59.5 


146 


26 


3i 


62.8 


166 


1856 


3006 


4862 


733 


1104 


1837 


9.8 


61.7 


15a 


32 


3 


63.0 


151 


2214 


3876 


6090 


1091 


1974 


3065 


7.2! 


57.1 


156 


32 





62.6 


137 


2140 


3617 


5757 


1017 


1715 


2732 


6.6 


59.1 


16a 


29 


H 


02.3 


132 


1959 


3417 


5376 


836 


1515 


2351 


6.9' 


57.3 


166 


34 


2i 


62.6 


119 


2283 


4012 


6205 


1160 


2110 ' 


3270 i 5.2 


56.9 


17a 


33 


3 ' 


62.3 


119 


??,22 


4027 


6249 


1099 1 


2125 ' 


3224 ^ 5.6 I 


55.1 


176 


35 


n 


62.0 


117 


2314 


4261 


6575 


1191 i 


23.59 ' 


35.-)0 6.4 f 


54.3 


18a 


32 


of 


62.7 


142 


2160 


3852 


6012 


1087 , 


1950 ! 


29'^7 6.9 i 56.0 


186 


29 


1* 


62.9 


181 


2029 j 


4164 


6193 


906 


22<j2 


3168 9.7 . 48.7 


19 


32 


3 


62.8 


140 


2195 4202 


6397 


1072 


2300 


3372 ' 6.7 1 52.3 


20 


20 


OJ 


62.5 


70 


13:i2 1 2074 


3406 


209 


172 


381 4.9 64.3 


21) 
22 f 










1 



















.. 1 .. 











184 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Here again, I want the Deacon to look at plot 0, where 500 lbs. 
Peruvian guano, sown in October, gives an increase of nearly 14 
bushels of dressed wheat and 1,3,75 lbs. of straw per acre. On plot 
2, where 14 tons of barnyard manure have now been applied four 
years in succession (56 tons in all), there is a little more straw, but 
not quite so much grain, as from the 500 lbs. of guano. 

" But will the guano," said the Deacon, " be as lasting as the 
manure ? " 

" Not for wheat," said I. " But if you seed the wheat down with 
clover, as would be the case in this section, we should get consid- 
erable benefit, probably, from the guano. If wheat was sown after 
the wheat, the guano applied the previous season would do little 
good on the second crop of wheat. And yet it is a matter of fact 
that there would be a considerable proportion of the guano left in 
the soil. The wheat cannot take it up. But the clover can. And 
we al] know that if we can grow good crops of clover, plowing it 
under, or feeding it out on the land, or making it into hay and 
saving the manure obtained from it, we shall thus be enabled to 
raise good crops of wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, and corn, and 
in this sense guano is a ' lasting ' manure." 

" Barnyard-manure," said the Doctor, " is altogether too * last- 
ing.' Here we have had 56 tons of manure on an acre of land in 
four years, and yet an acre dressed with 500 lbs. of guano produces 
just as good a crop. The manure contains far more plant-food, of 
all kinds, than the guano, but it is so ' lasting ' that it does not do 
half as much good as its composition would lead us to expect. Its 
* lasting ' properties are a decided objection, rather than an ad- 
vantage. If we could make it less lasting — in other words, if we 
could make it act quicker, it would produce a greater effect, and 
possess a greater value. In proportion to its constituents, the 
barn-yard manure is far cheaper than the guano, but it has a 
less beneficial effect, because these constituents are not more com- 
pletely decomposed and rendered available." 

" That," said I, " opens up a very important question. We have 
more real value in manure than most of us are as yet able to bring 
out and turn to good account. The sandy-land farmer has an ad- 
vantage over the clay-land farmer in this respect. The latter has a 
naturally richer soil, but it costs him more to work it, and manure 
does not act so rapidly. The clay-land farmer should use his best 
endeavors to decompose his manure." 

" Yes," said the Doctor, " and, like John Johnston, he will prob- 
ably find it to his advantage to use it largely as a top-dressing on 
the surface. Exposing manure to the atmosphere, spread out on 



EXPEBIMENTS ON WHEAT. 185 

the land for several months, and harrowing it occasionally, will 
do much to render its constituents available. But let us return to 
Mr. Lawes' wonderful experiments." 

"On eight plots," said I, " 300 lbs. of ammonia-salts were used 
without any other manures, and the average yield on these eight 
plots was nearly 26 bushels per acre, or an average increase of 9 
bushels per acre. The same amount of ammonia-salts, with the 
addition of superphosphate of lime, gave an increase of 13 bushels 
per acre. 400 lbs. ammonia- salts, with superphosphate of lime, 
gave an increase of nearly 16 bushels per acre, or three bushels 
per acre more than where 14 tons of barn-yard manure had been 
used four years in succession. 

" I hope, after this, the Deacon will forgive me for dwelling on 
the value of available nitrogen or ammonia as a manure for 
wheat." 

" I see," said the Deacon, " that ground rice was used this year 
for manure ; and in 1845, tapioca was also used as a manure. The 
Connecticut Tobacco growers a few years since used corn-meal for 
manure, and you thought it a great waste of good food." 

I think so still. But we will not discuss the matter now. Mr. 
Lawes wanted to ascertain whether carbonaceous matter was needed 
by the growing wheat-plants, or whether they could get ail they 
needed from the soil and the atmosphere. The enormous quanti- 
ties of carbonaceous matter supplied by the barn-yard manure, it 
is quite evident, are of little value as a manure for wheat. And 
the rice seems to have done very little more good than we should 
expect from the 22 lbs. of nitrogen which it contained. The large 
quantity of carbonaceous matter evidently did little good. Avail- 
able carbonaceous matter, such as starch, sugar, and oil, was in- 
tended as food for man and beast — not as food for wheat or 
tobacco. 

The following table gives the results of the experiments the 
fifth year, 1847-8. 



186 



TALKS ON MANURES. 

Experiments at Rothamsted on the Growth of 

TABLE v.— MANURES AND PRODUCE J 5TH SEASON, 1847-8. 





Manures per Acre. 














/Superphosphate oj 


i 


A 












1 


'fe* 


Lime. 






^s 


1 


1 




% 


1 






1 


1 


■s| 




1 


1^ 

it 


1 


f 


1 




Tons. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 




1 

2 


•• 








2240 






• • 


• • 




•• 


14 


•• 


* * 


•• 








* ■ 




" 


■* 


3 


Unma 


aured. 


•• 


.. 




.. 


.• 


•• 


•• 




•• 


4 




.. 


.. 


.. 




200 




200 


300 






5a 




300 


200 


100 




200 


150 




250 


250 




56 




300 


200 100 




200 


150 




200 


200 


500 


6a 












400 


300 


,, 


200 


200 




6b 












200 


150 




200 


200 




la 












400 


300 




150 


150 


500 


lb 


.. 






.. 




20O 


150 




150 


150 


500 


8a 




300 


200 


100 




200 


150 










86 




300 


200! 100 




200 


ino 




,, 




.. 


9a 












200 


150 










9i 












200 


150 




150 


150 




10a 


















150 


150 




106 




300 


200 


i66 




200 


150 


.. 


150 


150 


•• 


11a 












200 


150 




150 


150 


500 


116 














200 


150 




200 


200 




12a 




300 










200 


150 




150 


150 


500 


126 




300 










200 


150 




200 


200 




13a 




300 










200 


150 




150 


150 


500 


136 




300 










200 


150 




21,0 


200 




14a 




300 










200 


150 




150 


150 


500 


146 




300 


. 




.. 




200 


150 




200 


200 




15a 




300 


200 


100 




200 




200 


300 






156 




300 


200 


100 




200 




200 


300 


•• 


•• 


I6a 




300 


200 


100 




200 


150 




150 


150 


500 


166 




300 


200 


100 




200 


150 




150 


150 


500 


17a 




300 


200 


100 




200 


150 


.. 200 1 


200 




176 




300 


200 


100 




200 


150 




200 


200 




18a 




300 


200 


100 




200 


150 




150 


150 


.. 


186 




300 


200 


100 




200 


150 




150 


150 


•• 


19 












200 




200 


300 




500 


20 


Unma 


Qured. 


.. 












.. 


.. 


.. 


21 




,. 














.. 


,. 


., 


22 










1 




' 







EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 



187 



Wheat, Year aftbb Tkar, on thb same Land. 

makuke8 and bbbd (old kbd lammas) sown autumn, 1847. 





Dress 


Producb pbb Acrb, etc. I 


Increase ^ Acre 
Bt Manure. 









ed Corn. ^ 




fe 






^ 




3 

? 


a 






" 




6 




?^ 






§ 


^ 






Wl 


1 


1 


5! 5; 

r 






s 




s 
•s 




<§ 




P,l 




1 


1 




h 


1 


1 




Bush. 


Pks. lbs. lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 







J 


19 


0} 53.4 138 


1259 


2074 


3333 


307 


362 


609 


13.4 


60.7 


16 


^1 

3 


59.6 160 


1124 


1735 


2859 


172 


23 


195 


16.3 


64.7 


2 


25 


53.2 210 


1705 


3041 


4746 


753 


1329 


2082 


13.8 


56.0 


3 


14 


57.3 106 

1 


952 


1712 


2664 






'* 


12.1 


55.6 


4 


24 


Oi 


58.5| 172 


1583 


2713 


4296 


631 


1001 


1632 


U.0 


58.3 


5a 


29 


3i 


59.2 144 


1911 


3266 


5177 


959 


1554 


2513 


-!.'., 


58.5 


56 


30 


3 J 59.1 107 


1932 


3533 


54G5 


980 


1821 


2801 


5.8 


57.5 


6a 
66 


24 


3i 58.8 214 
3 156.9 216 


1G72 


2878 


4550 


720 


11G6 


1886 


14.0 


58.0 


26 


1737 29G8 


4705 


705 


1256 


2041 


14.0 


58.5 


7a 


30 


3} 59.4 106 

3i 59.6, 187 


1936 


3038 


50^4 


934 


1376 


23G0 


5.7 


62.6 


lb 


29 


1963 


3413 


5376 


1011 


1701 


2712 


10.3 


57.5 


8a 


19 


3 '56.2' 154 


1263 


2317 


3580 


311 


605 


916 


13.6 


54.5 


86 


19 


OJ '59.4 127 


1267 


2148 


3415 


315 


436 


751 


11.1 


5S.8 


9a 


18 


2* 56.7 125 


1181 1945 


3126 


229 


233 


4G2 


ll.G 


60.7 


96 


25 


Oi 5S.3 208 


1609 


2918 


4587 


717 


1206 


1923 


18.9 


57.1 


10a 


19 


1 53.1! 215 


1334 


2367 


3701 


382 


655 


10S7 


19.0 


56.3 


106 


25 


Oi 57.8 155 


1004 


2926 


4530 


652 


1214 


1866 


lO.G 


54.8 


11a 


29 


H 


53.6 233 


1984 


3274 


5258 


1032 


1562 


2594 


13.1 


60.6 


116 


24 


3 


57.9 207 


1641 


2398 


4539 


689 


1186 


1875 


14.1 


56.4 


12a 


29 


3 


59.31 174 


1938 1 3090 


5328 


986 


1G78 


2GG4 


9.3 


57.3 


126 


26 


01 


59.2 167 


1717 ' 2380 


4597 


765 


1163 


1933 


10.7 


59.6 


13a 


29 


u 


57.9; 253 


1955 3^!90 


5245 


1003 ! 1578 


2581 


14.7 


59.4 


136 


25 


sl 


53.4 224 


1730 3072 


4802 


778 ; 13G0 


2138 


14.6 


56.8 


l^a 


28 


Oi 


58.8 184 


1834 3257 


5091 


882 : 1545 


2427 


11.1 


56.3 


146 


25 


2I 


58.5^ 227 


1726 


2897 


4623 


774 1185 


1959 


15.1 


59.5 


15a 


22 


Si 


58.1' 242 


1571 


2937 


4508 


619 1225 


1844 


18.1 


53.4 


156 


24 


2f 


58.9, 202 


1607 


301G 


4623 


655 1304 


1959 


14.1 


53.2 


16a 


29 


3i 


60.0 184 


1973 


3115 


' 5083 


1021 


1403 


2424 


10.2 


63.3 


166 


30 


l| 


58.4 171 


1948 


3380 


1 53?8 


9!!6 


I 16()8 


2(iG4 


9.4 


,57.6 


17a 


27 


2i 


59.7 285 


1933 


3296 


5229 


981 


1 1584 


2565 17.0 


' 58.6 


176 


28 


3i 


59.7 222 


1946 


3324 


5270 


994 


1612 


2606 12.6 58.5 


18a 


26 


3 


59.2 150 


1734 


2935 


; 4(i69 


782 


! 1223 


2005 


9.2 59.0 


186 


26 


2} 


59.6 215 


1804 


3056 


4860 


852 


1344 


2196 


13.3 58.7 


19 


29 


If 


56.2 185 


1838 


3295 


5133 


886 


1583 


2469 


10.4' 55.7 


20 


16 


Ci 


58.3 111 


1050 


1721 


2771 


98 


9 


107 


11.3 61.0 


211 
22 ■ 






.. 1 .. 








.. 


.. 


.. 


.. 1 .. 






1 


' 




' 





188 TALKS ON MANURES. 

This season was considered unfavorable for wheat. The con- 
tinuously unmanured plot produced 14f bushels, and the plot 
receiving 14 tons of barn-yard manui'e, 25| bushels per acre nearly. 

300 lbs. of ammonia-salts alone on plot 10a, gave 19^ bushels 
per acre, while the same quantity of ammonia, with superphos- 
phate in addition, gave, on plot 9^, 25 bushels per acre. 

The addition to the above manures of 300 lbs. of potash, 200 lbs. 
soda, and 100 lbs. sulphate of magnesia, on plot 10^, gave pre- 
cisely the same yield per acre as the ammonia and the superphos- 
phate alone. The potash, soda, and magnesia, therefore, did no good. 

400 lbs. of ammonia-salts, with superphosphate, potash, etc., gave> 
on plot lib, nearly 29 bushels per acre, or 3i bushels more than the 
plot which has now received 70 tons of barn-yard manure in five 
successive years. 

" I see that, on plot 0," said the Deacon, "one ton of superphos- 
phate was used per acre, and it gave only half a bushel per acre 
more than 350 lbs. on 9a." 

" This proves," said I, " that an excessive dose of superphos- 
phate will do no harm. I am not sure that 100 lbs. of a good 
superphosphate drilled in with the seed, would not have done as 
much good as a ton per acre." 

"You say," remarked the Deacon, " that the season was unfa- 
vorable for wheat. And yet the no-manure plot produced nearly 
15 bushels of wheat per acre." 

" That is all true," said I, " and yet the season was undoubtedly 
an unfavorable one. This is shown not only in the less yield, but 
in the inferior quality of the grain. The ' dressed corn ' on the no- 
manure plot this year ouly weighed 57i lbs. per bushel, while last 
year it weighed 61 lbs. per bushel." 

"By the way," said the Doctor, "what do Messrs. Lawes and 
Gilbert mean by ' dressed corn ' ? " 

" By ' corn,' " said I, " they mean wheat ; and by ' dressed corn ' 
they mean wheat that has been run through a fanning-mill until 
all the light and shrunken grain is blown or sieved out. In other 
words,' dressed corn ' is wheat carefully cleaned for market. The 
English farmers take more pains in cleaning their grain than we 
do. And this ' dressed corn ' w^as as clean as a good fanning-mill 
could make it. You will observe that there was more ' offal com ' 
this year than last. This also indicates an unfavorable season." 

"It would have been very interesting," said the Doctor, "if 
Messrs, Lawes and Gilbert had analyzed the wheat produced by the 
diflferent manures, so that we might have known something in re- 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT, 189 

gard to the quality of the flour as mfluenced by the use of different 
fertilizers." 

" They did that very thing," said I, " and not only that, but 
they made the wheat grown on diflerent plots, into flour, and as- 
certained the yield of flour from a given weight of wheat, and the 
amount of bran, middlings, etc., etc. They obtained some very 
interesting and important results. I was there at the time. But 
this is not the place to discuss the question. I am often amused, 
however, at the remarks we often hear in regard to the inferior 
quality of our wheat as compared to what it was when the country 
was new. Many seem to think that ' there is something lacking in 
the soil '—some say potash, and some phosphates, and some this, 
and some that. I believe nothing of the kind. Depend upon it, 
the variety of the wlieat and the soil and season have much more 
to do with the quality or strength of the flour, than the chemical 
composition of the manures applied to the land." 

"At any rate," said the Doctor, " we may be satisfied that any- 
thing that will produce a vigorous, healthy growth of wheat is 
favorable to quality. We may use manures in excess, and thus 
produce over-luxuriance and an unhealthy growth, and have poor, 
shrunken grain. In this case, it is not the use, but the abuse of 
the manure that does the mischief. We must not manure higher 
than the season will bear. As yet, this question rarely troubles us. 
Hitherto, as a rule, our seasons are better than our farming. It 
may not always be so. We may find the liberal use of manure so 
profitable that we shall occasionally use it in excess. At present, 
however, the tendency is all the other way. We have more grain 
of inferior quality from lack of fertility than from an excess of 
plant-food." 

" That may be true," said I, " but we have more poor, inferior 
wheat from lack of draining and good culture, than from lack of 
plant-food. Red-root, thistles, cockle, and chess, have done more 
to injure the reputation of ' Genesee Flour,' than any other one 
thing, and I should like to hear more said about thorough cultiva- 
tion, and the destruction of weeds, and less about soil exhaustion." 

The following table shows the results of the experiments the 
sixth year^ 1848-9. 



190 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Experiments at Rothamsted on the Growth op 

TABLB VI.— MANURES AND PRODUCE; 6TH SEASON, 1848-9. 







Manures 


PER Acre. 
















p^ 


Superphosphate of Lime. 


1 


1 




^ 


i 






1 




Ip 


."S 


'=1 


-^ 




§ 


"^s^ 






'^•S 




^TH* 


s 
^ 


•^•s 


b2 






li 


1 


1 




1 


1^ 




1 




4 

(§ 




^5 


1 


e 


S 
^ 


1 


t^ 


1 


i_ 


1 




Tons. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


IbsT 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs7 













600 


450 


,. 


,, 


^, 




1 




600 


400 


200 












]] 


2 


14 




^^ 


., 


c. 


,^ 


.. 


__ 


,, 




3 


Unmanured. 


• . 


.. 


•. 


.. 


• • 






.. 


4 


.. 


.. 


.. 


.. 


200 


.. 


200 


300 






6a 




300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




250 


250 




5b 




300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 


500 


6a 


]\ 


300 


200 


100 


200 


150 


]* 


200 


200 




66 




300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 




la 


][ 


300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 




lb 




300 


200 


100 


200 


160 


• • 


200 


200 


•• 


8a 


Unma 


nured. 












" 






8& 










\\ 


II 




[\ 


2000 


9a 


]. .. 








\\ 


\\ 




,[ 


2000 


96 


Unmanured. 








^, 










lOa 




.. 








|] 


\\ 


200 


200 


'.'. 


106 


.. 










.. 


.. 


200 


200 


.. 


lla 




*' 






200 


150 




200 


200 




116 


[[ 








200 


150 


\] 


200 


200 




12a 


,, 


300 






200 


150 




200 


200 




126 




soo 






200 


150 


\[ 


200 


200 




1.3a 


,, 


300 






200 


150 




200 


200 




136 




300 






200 


150 




200 


200 


'[ 


14a 




300 






200 


150 


\] 


200 


200 




146 




300 






200 


150 


■ ■ 


200 


200 




l5o 




300 


200 


100 


200 




200 


300 






156 




300 


200 


100 


200 


*. 


200 


300 




500 


16a 




300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 




166 


,. 


300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 


,, 


17a 


,^ 


300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 




176 




300 


200 


100 


200 


150 


[[ 


200 


200 




18a 


,^ 


300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 




186 




300 


200 


100 


200 


150 


.' 


200 


200 




19 










200 




200 


300 




500 


20 


Unmanured. 








'.. 










21 1 

22 r 


Mixture of the reel 


iueof 


most of 


the otl 


ler mann 


ires. 


•■ 


•• 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 
Wheat, Yeab after Year, on the same Land, 
manures ant> bbed (red cluster), sown autumn, 1848. 



191 





Produce per Acre, etc. 


Increase ^ Acre 
BT Manure. 


1 






Dressed Corn- 








-1 








1 












g 


! 






1 


1 




1 






s; . 




a 




H 


^ 


a 


§ 






8 
« 


1 


1 


a 




I 


1^ 


1 


1 






6 


1 


1 


1 







Bush. 


Pks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lb». 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 






1 

2 


3i 


6' 


63.8 


107 


2008 


3029 


5097 


839 


14i5 


2254 


4.7 


6*8.3 


3 


19 


1 


61.4 


47 


1229 


1614 


2843 








3.9 


76.1 


4 


30 





63.0 


110 


2063 


2645 


4708 


834 


1031 


1865 


5.6 


78.0 


5a 


37 


n 


63.1 


89 


2446 


3589 


6035 


1217 


1975 


3192 


3.7 


68.1 


56 


39 


3i 


63.4 


97 


2651 


3824 


6475 


1422 


2210 


3632 


5.0 


69.3 


6a 


36 


n 


63.0 


117 


2410 


3072 


5482 


1181 


1458 


2639 


5.1 78.4 


66 


37 


31 


63.0 


94 


2484 


3516 


6GC0 


1S55 


ll;02 


3157 


3.9 


70.6 


la 


38 


2i 


63 1 


137 


2576 


3584 


6100 


1S47 


1970 


3317 


5.6 


71.9 


lb 


37 


3f 


62.9 


141 


2531 


3396 


5927 


1302 


1782 


3084 


5.9 


74.5 


Ba 


22 


3 


61.7 


76 


1481 


1815 


3296 


252 


201 


453 


5.3 


81.6 


86 


31 


2i 


63.0 


85 


2080 


3166 


5246 


851 


1552 


2403 4.3 


65.7 


9a 


30 


2} 


62.8 


111 


2035 


2(;83 


4718 


806 


1069 


1875 i 5.8 ; 75.8 


96 


22 


n 


62.3 


80 


1475 


1810 


3285 


246 


196 


432 5.7 


81.5 


10a 


32 


2i 


62.3 


112 


2141 


2851 


4992 


912 


1237 


2149 ,5.5 


75.1 


106 


32 


li 


63.3 


110 


2157 


2960 


5117 


928 


1346 


2274 


5.3 


72.9 


11a 


35 


Oi 


62.6 


121 


2317 


2892 


5209 


1088 


1278 


2366 


5.6 


80.1 


116 


32 


li 


63.0 


112 


2149 


2942 


50!)1 


920 


1328 


2248 


5.5 


73.0 


12a 


35 


Si 


64.3 


93 


2396 


3371 


5767 


1167 


1757 


2924 


4.1 


71.1 


126 


34 


n 


64.3 


71 


2277 


3300 


5577 


1048 


1687 


2735 


3.2 


69.0 


13a 


34 


Si 


64.1 


101 


2340 


8236 


5576 


1111 


1622 


2733 i4.5 


72.3 


136 


34 


2i 


64.1 


129 


2346 


3246 


5592 


1117 


1632 


2749 . 5.8 


72.3 


Ua 


34 > 


li 


64.3 


56 


2266 


3211 


5477 


1037 


1597 


2634 2.5 1 70.6 


146 


31 


n 


64.3 


112 


2123 


3218 


5341 


894 


1604 


2498 5.5 '66.0 


15a 


31 


Si 


64.2 


65 


2109 


3038 


5147 


880 


1424 


2304 3.2 69.4 


156 


30 


Oi 


64.1 


68 


2005 


3262 


5267 


776 


1648 


2424 3.5 61.5 


16a 


33 


n 


64.5 


101 


2254 


3384 


5638 


1025 


1770 


2795 ' 4.7 66.6 


166 


33 


3J 


64.6 


75 


2268 


3559 


5827 


1039 


1945 


2^:84 3.4 63.7 


17a 


34 


1 


64.3 


111 


2316 


3891 


6207 


1087 


2277 


3364 5.1 59.4 


176 


33 


1* 


64.4 


112 


2259 


3858 


6117 


1030 


2244 


3274 5.2 


5S.5 


18a 


32 


n 


64.0 


93 


2163 


3592 


5755 


934 


1978 


2912 ; 4.5 


60.2 


186 


33 


2i 


64.0 


95 


224:3 


3779 


6022 


1014 


2165 


3179 ■ 4.4 


59.3 


19 

20 
21 » 
22f 


29 


2i 


63.9 


102 


1994 


3270 


5264 


765 


1656 


2421 5.4 


61.0 




* ' 






" 


•■ 


;; 


'■ 


• ' 


.. 


" • 






1 




1 






1 



192 TALKS ON MANURES. 

" This was my last year at Rothamsted," said I, " and I feel a 
peculiar interest in looking over the results after such a lapse of 
time. When this crop was growing, my father, a good practical 
farmer, but with little faith in chemical manures, paid me a visit. 
We went to the experimental wheat-field. The first two plots, 
and 1, had been dressed, the one with superphosphate, the other 
with potash, soda, and magnesia. My father did not seem much 
impressed with this kind of chemical manuring. Stepping to the 
next plot, where 14 tons of barn-yard manure had been used, he 
remarked, " this is good, what have you here ?" 

" Never mind," said I, " we have better crops farther on." 

The next plot, No. 3, was the one continuously unmanured. " I 
can beat this myself," said he, and passed on to the next. " This 
is better," said he, "what have you here?" 

" Superphosphate and sulphate of ammonia." 

"Well, it is a good crop, and the straw is bright and stiff." — It 
turned out 30 bushels per acre, 63 lbs. to the bushel. 

The next six plots had received very heavy dressings of ammo- 
nia-salts, with superphosphate, potash, soda, and magnesia. He 
examined them with the greatest interest. " What have you here?" 
he asked, while he was examining 5a, which afterwards turned out 
B7i bushels per acre. — " Potash, soda, epsom-salts, superphosphate, 
and ammonia — but it is the ammonia that does the good." 

He passed to the next plot, and was very enthusiastic over it. 
" What have you here?" — "Rape-cake and ammonia," said I. — 
"It is a grand crop," said he, and after examining it with great 
interest, he passed to the next, Ga. — "What have you here?" — 
" Ammonia," said I ; and at Qb he asked the same question, and I re- 
plied " ammonia." At 7a, the same question and the same answer. 
Standing between lb and Sa, he was of course struck with the 
difference in the crop ; 8a was left this year without any manure, 
and though it had received a liberal supply of mineral manures 
the year before, and minerals and ammonia-salts, and rape-cake, 
the year previous, it only produced this year, 3^ bushels more than 
the plot continuously unmanured. The contrast between the 
wheat on this plot and the next one, might well interest a prac- 
tical farmer. There was over 15 bushels per acre more wheat on 
the one plot than on the other, and 1,581 lbs. more straw. 

Passing to the next plot, he exclaimed "this is better, but not so 
good as some that we have passed." — "It has had a heavy dressing 
of rape-cake," said I, "equal to about 100 lbs. of ammonia per 
acre, and the next plot was manured this year in the same way. 
The only difference being that one had superphosphate and potash, 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 193 

soda, and magnesia, th^ year before, while the other had super- 
phosphate alone." It turned out, as you see from the table, that 
the potash, etc., only gave half a bushel more wheat per acre the 
year it was used, and this year, with 2,000 lbs. of rape-cake on each 
plot, there is only a bushel per acre in favor of the potash, soda, 
and magnesia. 

The next plot, 9b, was also unmanured and was passed by my 
father without comment. " Ah," said he, on coming to the two 
next plots, 10a and 10b, "this is better, what have you here ?" — 
^^ Nothing but ammonia,'" said I, "and I wish you would tell me 
which is the best of the two ? Last year 106 had a heavy dressing 
of minerals and superphosphate with ammonia, and \0a the same 
quantity of ammonia alone, without superphosphate or other 
mineral manures. And this year both plots have had a dressing of 
400 lbs. each of ammonia-salts. Now, which is the best — the plot 
that had superphosphate and minerals last year, or the one with- 
out?" — "Well," said he, " I can't see any difference. Both are 
good crops." 

You will see from the table, that the plot which had the super- 
phosphate, potash, etc. , the year before, gives a peck less wheat this 
year than the other plot which had none. Practically, the yield is 
the same. There is an increase of 13 bushels of wheat per acre — 
and this increase is clearly due to the ammonia-salts alone. 

The next plot was also a splendid crop. 

" What have you here ? " 

"Superphosphate and ammonia." 

This plot (11«), turned out 35 bushels per acre. The next plot, 
with phosphates and ammonia, was nearly as good. The next plot, 
with potash, phosphates, and ammonia, equally good, but no better 
than 11a. There was little or no benefit from the potash, except 
a little more straio. The next plot was good and I did not wait for 
the question, but simply said, "ammonia," and the next "ammo- 
nia," and the next "ammonia." — Standing still and looking at the 
wheat, my father asked, " Joe, where can I get this ammonia ?" 
He had previously been a little skeptical as to the value of chem- 
istry, and had not a high opinion of " book farmers," but that 
wheat-crop compelled him to admit " that perhaps, after all, there 
might be some good in it." At any rate, he wanted to know where 
he could get ammonia. And, now, as then, every good farmer asks 
the same question: "Where can I get ammonia?" Before we 
attempt to answer the question, let us look at the next year's ex- 
periments. — The following is the results of the experiments the 
seventh year, 1849-50. 
9 



194 



TALKS ON MANUEES. 

Experiments at Kothamsted on the Growth of 



TABLB Vn.— MANURES ANB PRODUCE ; 7TH SEASON, 1849-50. AfTER THE 

2'TO 3 FEET DEEP. MANURES AND SEED 



Manures per Acre. 






Tons. 



lbs. 

666 
l4 
Unmanured 



Supetjihosphale of Lime 



lbs. 
466 



21 



300 
300 
00 
300 
300 



300 



300 
300 
300 
300 
300 
300 



300 
300 
300 
300 
300 
300 



200 

200 
200 
2C0 
200 
200 



'k.? 






200 
200 

200 

200 
200 
200 
200 



lbs. 
266 



100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 



100 



100 
100 

100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 



lbs. 
600 



200 

200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 



200 

200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 

200 
200 

200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 

200 



1^ 

it 



lbs. 
450 



150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 



150 

150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 



150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 



lbs. 



200 



200 
200 



200 






800 

250 
250 
200 
200 
200 
200 

200 
200 
200 
200 
200 



200 

200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 

300 
300 



200 
200 



200 
200 



300 



•fe^.^ 



Unmanured. 

Mixture of the residue of most of the other manures. 



lbs. 



250 
250 
200 
200 
200 
200 

200 
200 
200 
200 
200 



200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 



200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 



lbs. 



500 
500 



500 



500 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 



195 



Wheat, Year after Year, on the same Land. 

HARVEST OF 1849 THE FIELD "WAS TrLE-DRAlNED IN EVERT ALTERNATE FURROW, 
(BJiD CLUSTER), SOWN IN AUTUMN, 1849. 







PbODUCE PER 


Acre, etc. 


Increase ^ Acre 
BY Manure. 


1 






Dressed Coin. 








^^ 






















^ 


g^ 




fe 




1 












Q 


* 




o> 


|i 


i 


g 






1 




I 


■S 

8 
S 


1 

1 




Busb 


. Pks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 








1 

2 


19 


H 


60.8 


42 


1220 


2037 


3257 


218 


318 


536 


3.5 


59 9 


28 


2* 


6i!9 


98 


1861 


3245 


5106 


8.59 


1526 


23S5 


5^4 


57'3 


3 


15 


3i 


60.6 


44 


1002 


1719 


2721 








4.5 


58.2 


4 


27 


3 


61.2 


87 


1785 


3312 


5097 


783 


1593 


2376 


5.1 


53.9 


6a 


29 


H 


60.4 


171 


1974 


4504 


6478 


972 


2785 


3757 


9.5 


43.8 


56 


30 


3 


60.4 


160 


2018 


4379 


6397 


1016 


2660 


3676 


8.6 


46.1 


6a 


30 


0* 


61.1 


119 


1960 


3!>27 


5887 


9.38 


2208 


3166 


6.3 


49.9 


6b 


29 


Si 


61.3 


148 


1980 


3951) i 5!)39 


978 


2240 3218 


8.0 


50.0 


7a 


32 


1 


61.0 


167 


2134 


4485 6619 


1132 


27.)6 3893 


8.4 


47.9 


76 


32 


Oi 


61.2 


150 


2112 


4280 


6392 


1110 


2561 3671 


7.6 


49.4 


8a 


28 


3 


61.1 


101 


1856 


8407 


5263 


854 


16S8 ' 2542 


5.5 


54.5 


86 


30 


1 


61.0 


103 


1948 


3591 


5539 


946 


1872 2818 


5.6 


54.2 


9a 


30 


1* 


60.4 


118 


1951 


3550 


5501 


919 


1881 2780 


5.3 


55 


96 


27 


2f 


60.8 


80 


1762 


3165 


4927 


760 


1446 2206 


4.7 


55.7 


10a 


26 


3| 


60.2 


100 


1721 


3089 


4810 


719 


1370 2089 


S.l 1 


55.7 


106 


17 


3* 


61.1 


76 


1171 


1949 


3120 


169 


230 j 399 


5.8 


60.1 


11a 


30 


3i 


61.0 


121 


2001 


3S06 


5807 


999 


2087 3086 


?.4 


52.6 


116 


29 


n 


61.1 


145 


1940 


3741 


5681 


938 


20^2 2960 


?.o 1 


51.9 


12a 


29 


sl 


61.5 


94 


1935 


3921 


5856 


938 


2202 


8135 


5.1 


49.4 


126 


30 


Si 


61.4 


115 


2013 


8905 ! 5918 1 


1011 


2186 


3197 


5.9 ■ 


51.5 


13a 


31 


3* 


60.2 


105 


2027 


402;) 


6053 


1025 


2397 


3382 


5.4 i 


50.3 


136 


30 


n 


61.0 


111 


1981 


4008 


5972 


962 


2289 


3251 


s.o 


49.0 


14a 


31 


n 


61.1 


102 


2023 


4052 


6075 


in21 


2883 


3854 


5.3 


49.9 


146 


31 


i| 


61.5 


65 


1995 


4015 


6010 


993 


2296 


3289 

1 


3.2 49.7 


15a 


26 


Oi 


61.5 


90 


1693 


3321 


5014 


691 


1602 


2293 5.7 51.0 


156 


30 


el 


61.0 


59 


1942 


3926 5868 


940 2207 


3147 3.0 49.5 


16a 


33 


2* 


60.3 


108 


2134 


5103 7237 


1132 3.384 


4516 5.3 41.8 


166 


33 


3 


60.4 


122 


2159 


4615 6774 


11.57 2896 


405:3 6.0 46.8 


17a 


31 


1 


61.2 


73 


1985 


4126 6111 


983 2407 


3890 3.8 48.1 


176 


29 


2* 


61.5 


1.39 


1951 


4034 5995 


9.59 2315 


.3274 7.7 48.6 


18a 


29 


3i 


61.2 


110 


1934 


3927 5861 


932 2208 


3140 6.1 49.3 


186 


28 


2I 


60.9 


103 


1845 


3844 5689 

1 


843 : 2125 


2968 ,5.7 48.0 


19 


29 





60.8 


88 


1850 


3527 5377 


848 


1808 


2656 4.9 52.4 


20 


14 





59.1 


40 


868 


1639 2507 


-134 


-80 


-214 4.5 53.0 


21) 
22r 




.. 








.. 






.. 1 .. 










( 


III 



196 TALKS ON MANURES. 

The summer of 1850 was unusually cool and unfavorable for 
wheat. It will be seen that on all the plots the yield of grain is* 
considerably lower than last year, with a greater growth of straw. 

You will notice that 105, wh'ich last year gave, with ammo- 
Dia-salts alone, 321- bushels, this year, with superphosjjhate, potash, 
soda, and sulphate of magnesia, gives less than 18 bushels, while 
the adjoining plot, dressed with ammonia, gives nearly 27 bushels. 
In other words, the ammonia alone gives 9 bushels per acre more 
than this large dressing of superphosphate, potash, etc. 

On the three plots, 8a, Sb and 9<x, a dressing of ammonia-salts 
alone gives in each case, a larger yield, both of grain and straw, than 
the 14 tons of barn-yard manure on plot 2. And recollect that 
this plot has now received 98 tons of manure in seven years. 

" That," said the Doctor, " is certainly a very remarkable fact." 

" It is so," said the Deacon. 

" But what of it ? " asked the Squire, " even the Professor, here, 
does not advise the use of ammonia-salts for wheat." 

" That is so," said 1, "but perhaps I am mistaken. Such facts 
as those just given, though I have been acquainted with them for 
many years, sometimes incline me to doubt the soundness of my 
conclusions. Still, on the whole, I think I am right." 

" We all know," said the Deacon, " that you have great respect 
for your own opinions." 

" Never mind all that," said the Doctor, " but tell us just what 
you think on this subject." 

" In brief," said I, " my opinion is this. We need ammonia for 
wheat. But though ammonia-salts and nitrate of soda can often be 
used with decided profit, yet I feel sure that we can get ammo- 
nia or nitrogen at a less cost per lb. by buying bran, malt-roots, 
cotton-seed-cake, and other foods, and using them for the double 
purpose of feeding stock and making manure." 

" I admit that such is the case, " said the Doctor, " but here is a 
plot of land that has now had 14 tons of manure every year for 
seven years, and yet there is a plot along side, dressed with am- 
monia-salts furnishing less than half the ammonia contained in the 
14 tons of manure, that produces a better yield of wheat." 

" That," said I, '* is simply because the nitrogen in the manure 
is not in an available condition. And the practical question is, 
how to make the nitrogen in our manure more immediately avail- 
able. It is one of the most important questions which agricultural 
science is called upon to answer. Until we get more light, I feel 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 197 

sure in saying that one of the best methods is, to feed our animals 
on richer and more easily digested food." 

The following table gives the results of the eighth season of 
1850-51. 



198 TAiKS ON MANURES. 

Experiments at Rothamsted on the Gkowth op 

TABLE VIII.— MANURES AND PRODUCE ; 8TH SEASON. 1850-51. 







Manures 


PER Acre. 








^ 












Superplwspkate of 


i 


, 






1 




1 


1 




i 


Lime. 




■^ 

S 




1 




I? 








Toas. 


o 
lbs. 


1 

lbs. 




lbs. 


1 


1 


1^ 


■g 
« 


1 


r 


f^ 




lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


Iba. 


lbs' 

















600 


450 










1 








600 


400 


200 














2 


i4 


















.. 






3 


Unma 


aured. 






•• 




•. 


•• 


•• 


•• 




• • 


4 




.. 






.. 




200 




200 


400 


.. 


.. 


5a 




_ 




800 


200 


100 


200 


150 




800 


800 




56 








800 


200 


100 


200 


150 




300 


800 




6a 








8)0 


210 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 




6b 








800 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 .. 


la 








800 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 1000 


lb 








300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 


1000 


8a 




5000 






















86 








300 


200 


100 


200 


150 




100 


100 




9a 




., 
















200 


200 




96 
















.. 




200 


200 




10a 




















200 


200 




106 




•• 




.. 






.. 






200 


200 




11a 














200 


150 




200 


200 




116 














200 


150 




200 


200 




12a 




.. 




200 


100 




200 


150 




200 


200 




126 








200 


100 




200 


150 




200 


200 




13a 




.. 




300 






200 


150 




210 


200 




136 








800 






200 


150 




200 


200 




14a 








200 




100 


200 


150 




200 


200 




U6 




.. 




200 


.. 


100 


200 150 




200 


200 




15a 








200 


100 


100 


200 


200 


400 






156 




•• 


'■ 


200 


100 


100 


200 


200 


300 


.. 


500 


161 




. . 3361 


200 


100 


100 


200 1 150 




300 


800 




166 








200 


100 


100 


200 ' 150 




300 


800 




17a 








200 


100 


100 


200 150 




200 


200 




176 








200 


100 


100 


200 


150 




200 


200 




18a 




,. 










.. 






200 


200 




186 




.. 


.. 










.. 


.. 


200 


200 




19 














200 




200 


800 




500 


20) 


























21 I 


Unmai 


tturcd. \ 






















22) 




_ 






.. 1 


.. 






.. 



Top-dressed in March, 1851. 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 
Wheat, Year after Tear, on the same Laiid. 
mairukbs and seed (red cluster), sown autumn, 1850. 



199 







Produce per 


Acre, etc. 


Increase ^ Acre 
BY Manure. 


1 






Dressed Corn. 








?s 








g 














'^ 


a^ 




^ 




s 










S* 


"i 












s 


ii 




§ 


S 





^ 






&> 

S 

s 
^ 


1^ 


i 


i 






K 


§ 
1 


^ 


i 


8 




Bush 


. P'ks. 


Tb^ 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 1 lbs. 


lbs. 









18 


3i 


61.9 


125 


1296 


1862 


3158 


213 ' 235 


448 


10.7 69.6 


1 


18 


H 


()1.7 


124 


1251 


1845 


3096 


168 


218 


386 


11.0 67.8 


3 


29 


sj 


63.6 


166 


2049 


3094 


5143 


966 


1467 


a433 


8.8 66.2 


8 


15 


3J 


61.1 


114 


1083 


1627 


2710 








11.8 66.6 


4 


28 


Oi 


62 6 


159 


1919 


2949 


4868 


836 


1.322 2158 


9.0 


65.1 


5a 


36 





63.3 


194 


2473 


4131 


6604 


1390 


2504 1 3894 


8.6 


59.9 


5b 


37 


3f 


63.3 


213 


2611 


4294 


6905 


1528 


2667 4195 


8.9 


60.8 


6a 


33 


If 


63.3 


154 


2271 


3624 


5895 


1188 


1997 ! 3185 


7.2 


62.6 


6b 


31 


o| 


62.3 


I8ri 


2119 


3507 


5626 


1036 


1880 2916 


9.8 


00.4 


la 


36 


3* 


63.0 


201 


2524 


4587 


7in 


1441 


2960 4401 


8.7 


55.0 


lb 


37 


l| 


63.0 


178 


2532 


4302 


6834 


1449 2675 ; 4124 


7.6 


58.8 


8a 


26 


Oi 


62.8 


141 


1785 


2769 


4554 


702 1142 1844 


8.6 


64.5 


86 


27 


4 


62.6 


137 


1863 


2a30 


4693 


780 12ft3 198:3 


7.9 65.8 


9a 


31 


H 


02.4 


182 


2142 


3252 


5394 


1059 1625 i 2684 


9.3 


65.9 


96 


29 


Oi 


62.0 


170 


1970 


2912 


4912 


887 1315 2202 


9.5 


67.0 


10a 


28 


3* 


61.9 


179 


1966 


.3070 


5030 


88:3 144:3 2.326 


10.0 


64.0 


106 


28 


4 


62.5 


149 


1937 


3043 


4985 


854 1421 2275 


8.3 


63.5 


11a 


32 


2J 


62.3 


181 


2216 


3386 


5602 


11.33 17.59 28^ 


8.9 


65.4 


116 


31 


n 


62.5 


181 


2163 


3302 


5465 


1080 1675 j 27.55 


9.1 


65.5 


12a 


32 


3 


63.1 


165 


22.34 


3600 


.5834 


1151 1973 3124 


8.0|62.0 


126 


32 


2i 


62.5 


166 


2203 


35R1 


5784 


1120 1954 3074 


8.261.5 


13a 


30 


4 


62.6 


180 


2102 


3.544 


5616 


1019 1917 ' 29.36 


9.4L59.3 


186 


30 


si 


62.3 


160 


2083 


.3440 


5523 


1000 1813 ' 2813 


8.3i60.5 


14a 


31 


0} 


62.9 168 


2120 


360.T 


5725 


1037 1978 3015 


8.6158.8 


146 


31 


Oi 


62.8 165 


2121 


3537 


5658 


1038 1910 2948 


8.4.59.9 


15a 


27 


Oi 


62.7 1.38 


1839 


3041 


4880 


756 1414 2170 


8.1 60.5 


156 


30 


4 


62.9 148 


2077 


3432 


5509 


994 1805 2799 


7.6 60.5 


16a 


36 


Si- 


63.5 161 


2409 


42.34 


6733 


1416 2607 4023 


6.9 59.0 


166 


36 


2| 


63.4 176 


2501 


4332 


6S33 


1418 


2705 4123 


7.6:57.7 


ITa 


31 


Si 


63.3 131 


2149 


35:)7 


5746 


1066 


1970 .3036 


6.5 59.7 


176 


30 


2i 


63.1 152 


2079 


.3406 


5485 


996 


17T9 2775 


7.961.0 


18a 


30 


sl 


63.0 139 


2083 


3390 


5473 


1000 


1763 2763 


7.2 64.1 


186 


31 


Of 


62.4 143 


2090 


3586 


5676 


1007 


1959 2966 


7.3 58.3 


19 


30 


1 


62.4 144 


2031 


3348 


.5379 


948 


1721 


2669 


7.7 60.7 


20 


14 


1 


60.8 89 


956 


1609 


2565 


-127 


-18 


-145 


10.2 59.4 


211 

22 r 


17 


3i 


61.9 


127 


12.32 


1763 


2995 


149 


1.36 


285 


11.5 


69.9 



200 TALKS ON MANURES. 

The plot continuously unmanured, gives about 16 bushels of 
wheat per acre. 

The plot with barn-yard manure, nearly 30 bushels per acre. 

400 lbs. of ammonia-salts alone^ on plot 9<z, 31^ bushels ; on 95, 
29 bushels ; on IQa and 106, nearly 29 bushels each. This is remark- 
able uniformity. 

400 lbs. ammonia-salts and a large quantity of mineral manures 
in addition, on twelve different plots, average not quite 32 bushels 
per acre. 

"The superphosphate and minerals," said the Deacon, **do not 
seem to do much good, that is a fact." 

You will notice that 336 lbs. of common salt was sown on plot 
16a. It does not seem to have done the slightest good. Where the 
salt was used, there is 2 lbs. less grain and 98 lbs. less straw than 
on the adjoining plot 166, where no salt was used, but otherwise 
manured alike. It would seem, however, that the quality of the 
grain was slightly improved by the salt. The salt was sown in 
March as a top-dressing. 

" It would have been better," said the Deacon, " to have sown it 
in autumn with the other manures." 

" The Deacon is right," said I, " but it so happens that the next 
year and the year after, the salt was applied at the same time as 
the other manures. It gave an increase of 94 lbs. of grain and 61 
lbs. of straw in 1851, but the following year the same quantity of 
salt used on the same plot did more harm than good." 

Before we leave the results of this year, it should be observed 
that on 8a, 5,000 lbs. of cut straw and chaff were used per acre. I 
do not recollect seeing anything in regard to it. And yet the 
result was very remarkable — so much so indeed, that it is a matter 
of regret that the experiment was not repeated. 

This 5,000 lbs. of straw and chaff gave an increase of more than 
10 bushels per acre over the continuously unmanured plot. 

"Good," said the Deacon, "I have always told you that you 
under-estimated the value of straw, especially in regard to its 
mechanical action." 

I did not reply to this remark of the good Deacon. I have never 
doubted the good effects of anything that lightens up a clay soil 
anr'.-iivier^ y^ ^ -irmer and more porous. I suppose the great benefit 
derived from this application of straw must be attributed to its 
ameliorating actir^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ n^^^ ^qqq l^^g^ ^f ^^^.^^ ^^^j ^^^q 
produced a cro;^^ within nearly 3 bushels per acre of the plot ma- 
nured every ^ear with 14 tons of barn-yard manure. 

"lam surprised," said the Doctor, " that salt did no good. I 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 201 

have seen many instances in which it has had a wonderful effect 
on wheat." 

" Yes," said I, " and our experienced friend, John Johnston, is 
very decidedly of the opinion that its use is highly profitable. He 
sows a barrel of salt per acre broadcast on the land at the time he 
sows his wheat, and I have myself seen it produce a decided im- 
provement in the crop." 

We have now given the results of the first eight years of the ex- 
periments. From this time forward, the same manures were used 
year after year on the same plot. 

The results are given in the accompanying tables for the follow- 
ing twelve years— harvests for 1852-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60- 
61-62 and 1863. Such another set of experiments are not to be 
found in the world, and they deserve and will receive the careful 
study of every intelligent American farmer. 

" I am with you there," said the Deacon. " You seem to think 
that I do not appreciate the labors of scientific men. I do. Such 
experiments as these we are examining command the respect of 
every intelligent farmer. I may not fully understand them, but I 
can see clearly enough that they are of great value." 



202 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



Experiments at Rothamsted on the Gkowth of Wheat, Tbar 
AFTER Teak, on the same Land. 

Table IX. — Manures per Acre per Annum (with the exceptions explained in 
the Notes on p. 203), for 12 Years in succession— namely, for the 9th, 10th, 
11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17t.., ISth, 19th, and 20th Seasons : that is, 
for the crops of Harvests 1852-53-54-55-56-5T-58-59-60-61-62 and 1863.* 




1 
2 
S 
4 

5a 

5b 

6a 

66 

Ta 

76 

8a 

86 

9a^ 

963 

10a 

106 

llo 

116 

12a 

126 

13a 

136 

14a 

146 

15a 

156 

16a 

166 

il76 
J 18a 
1186 
•19 

20 

21 

22 



Manures per Acre per Annum for 12 Yeai's, 1851-2 to 1862-3 inclusive, 
except in the cases €Xj)lained in tJie Notes onp, 203. 



Tons. 



14 

Unmanured 
Unraanured 



336* 



Unmanitre<I 



V 



lbs. 



600 



300 



3oa 



400 



200 

200 
200 
200 
209 
200 
200 
200 
200 



550 
550 



300 200 
200 
300 200 
300 200 



300 
300 



300 



200 
200 



200 

200 



lbs. 



200 



100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 



420 
420 
100 
100 
100 
100 



100 

100 



Superphosphate of 
Lime. 



lbs. 
600 



200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 



200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 



200 
200 
200 






lbs. 
450 



150 

150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 



150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 
150 



150 
150 



150 
150 






lbs. 



200 
200 



lbs." 



300 



100 



lbs. 



100 
100 
200 
200 
300 
300 



200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 



400 
400 
200 
200 



00 



lbs. 



550 
550 



509 



500 



* For the particulars of the produce of euicb sepasrate season, see Tables, 
X.-XXI. iocittsive. 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 20'6 



NOTES TO TABLE IX. (p. 203.) 

* For the 16th and succeeding seasons— the sulphate of potass 
was reduced from 600 to 400 lbs. per acre per annum on Plot 1, 
and from 300 to 200 lbs. on all the other Plots where it was used '; 
the sulphate of soda from 400 to 200 lbs. on Plot 1, to 100 lbs. on 
all the Plots on which 200 lbs. had previously been applied, and 
from 550 to 336^ lbs. (two-thirds the amount) on Plots 12a and 
12b ; and the sulphate of magnesia from 420 to 280 lbs. (two-thirds 
the amount) on Plots 14a and 14J. 

^ Plot 9a— the sulphates of potass, soda, and magnesia, and the 
superphosphate of lime, were applied in the 12th and succeeding 
seasons, but not in the 9th, 10th, and 11th ; and the amount of 
nitrate of soda was for the 9th season only 475 lbs. per acre, and 
for the 10th and 11th seasons only 275 lbs. 

' y^lot 95— in the 9th season only 475 lbs. of nitrate of soda were 
applied. 

* Common salt — not applied after the 10th season. 

' Plots 17a and 175, and ISa and 185— the manures on these 
plots alternate: that is. Plots 17 were manured with ammonia-salts 
in the 9th season; with the sulphates of potass, soda, and magne- 
sia, and superphosphate of lime, in the 10th ; ammonia-salts again 
in the Uth; the sulphates of potass, soda, and magnesia, and 
superphosphate of lime, again in the 12th, and so on. Plots 18, 
on the other hand, had the sulphates of potass, soda, and magne- 
sia, and superphosphate of lime, in the 9th season ; ammonia-salts 
in the 10th, and so on, alternately. 



204 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



Experiments at Rothamsted on the Growth op Wheat, Year 
AFTER Year, on the same Land. 



Table X.— Produce of the 9th Season, 
1851-2. Seed (Red Cluster) sown No- 
vember 7, 1851 ; Crop cut August 24, 
1852. 





Produce 


PER 


Acre, 


ETC. 




(For 


the Manures see pp. 202 
and 203.) 


•2 


Dressed Com. 






^ 




<. 


^ 


s 




i^' 









i 


|i 


1 






Bush 


Plv9. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 





15 


OM 


55.8 


919 


2625 


1 


13 


1 


56.9 


825 


2322 


2 


27 


214 


58.2 


1716 


5173 


3 


13 


3^4 


56.6 


8(50 


2457 


4 


13 


1^ 


57.3 


870 


2441 


5a 


16 


3 


57.5 


1038 


2941 


5b 


17 


014 


57.3 


1065 


3097 


6a 


20 


3 


57.6 


1288 


3869 


6ft 


20 


^}4 


57.5 


1300 


3904 


7a 


26 


2'/j 


56.0 


1615 


54()5 


7ft 


26 


3?i 


55.8 


1643 


5415 


8a 


27 


33^ 


55.9 


161)9 


5505 


8ft 


27 


0>^ 


55.9 


1651 


5423 


9a 


25 


2 


55.6 


1591 


5305 


9ft 


24 


1^ 


55.3 


1509 


4883 


10a 


21 


m 


55 9 


1320 


4107 


10ft 


22 


014 


57 3 


1343 


4162 


11a 


24 


0,?4 


55.6 


1472 


4553 


lift 


22 


14 


55 9 


1387 


4299 


12a 


24 


134 


57.4 


1503 


4700 


12ft 


24 


1¥ 


57 3 


1492 


4724 


13a 


24 





57.5 


1480 


4702 


13ft 


23 


334 


57.1 


1476 


4765 


14a 


24 


1?4 


56.9 


1507 


5054 


146 


25 


0J4 


56.7 


1530 


5137 


15a 


23 


IH 


57.4 


1451 


4663 


15ft 


25 


o;J 


56.8 


1520 


4941 


16a 


28 


3^ 


55.0 


1794 


6471 


16ft 


28 





54.5 


1700 


6316 


17a 


25 


2 


56.5 


1577 


5311 


17ft 


24 


1)^ 


56.9 


1520 


4986 


18a 


13 


3 


57.0 


869 


25.56 


18ft 


14 


3^ 


56.7 


921 


2685 


19 


24 


3X 


56.1 


1582 


4979 


20 


14 


054 


56.6 


875 


2452 


21 


19 


134 


56.9 


1177 


3285 


22 


19 


2J4 


55. 9 


1176 


3355 



Table XI.— Produce of the 10th Sea- 
^ SON. 1853. Seed (Red Rostock) sown 
March 16; Crop cut September 10, 
and carted September 20, 1853. 



Produce per Acre, etc. 
(For tlie Manures see pp. ! 
and 203). 



Dressed Corn. 




1 
2 
3 
4 

5a 
5ft 
6a 
Oft 
7a 
7ft 
8a 
8ft 

9a 
96 

10a 
106 
Ua 
lift 
12a 
126 
13a 
136 
14a 
14ft 

15a 
15ft 

16a 
166 

17a 
176 
18a 
186 



Bush. Pks. 
9 034 



134 




1 
3.4 

2^ 

1 

134 

3?4 

2 

2 

234 



314 

Ifi 

23^ 

2 

034 



19 

23 2^ 

24 \}4 

25 3^ 



1»4 
334 



19 114 

5 3^4 

12 334 

10 1 






lbs. 
49.1 
46.1 
51.1 
45.1 
46.1 

48.9 
48 9 
51.8 
51.8 
52.2 
51.1 
51.1 
51.1 

47.7 
46.1 



49.8 
50.1 
51.1 
52.0 
51.1 
52.1 
51.1 
51.2 
52.6 

51.1 
51.1 

52.5 
52.5 

49.8 
48.9 
52.9 
52.1 



lbs. 
599 
404 
1120 
359 
446 

587 
611 
978 
1072 
1369 
1357 
1346 
1425 

691 



642 

896 
1015 
1073 
12R3 
1375 
1341 
1396 
1322 
1347 



1351 



1496 
1537 



539 
1111 
1256 



52.6 1160 



^1 



lbs. 
2406 
2036 
4492 
1772 
2116 

2538 
2741 
3755 
3870 
5110 
5091 
5312 
5352 

3090 
2902 

2691 
3578 
3539 
3780 
4948 
5079 
5045 
5308 
4793 
5108 



1143 1 4504 



47.8 
50.4 
49.4 



425 



5107 

6400 
6556 

2516 
2551 
4496 
5052 

4373 

2084 



753 2934 
592 I 2452 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 



205 



Experiments at Rothamsted on the Growth op Wheat, Tear 
AFTER Year, on the same Land. 

Table XIIT.— Produce of llie 12th 
Season, 1854-5. Seed (Red Rostock) 
sown November 9, 1854; Crop cut 
August 26, and carted September 2, 
1855. 



Table 


XII.— Produce of the 


llTHi 


Season, 1853-4. Seed (Red Rostock) j 


sown 


November 


12, 1853; Crop cut 


August 21, and carted August 31, 1854. 




Produce 


PER Acre, etc. 




(For the Manures see pp. 202 






xnd 203). 1 


1 


Dressed Co?'n. | 


^. 




•5* 


?^ 


6 




s 


'sefi 




^ e 








1 


|§^ 




Bush. Pks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 





26 1% 


61.0 


1072 


3786 


1 


24 1)4 


60.2 


1529 


4060 


2 


41 0)4 


62.5 


2675 


7125 


3 


21 014 


60.6 


1359 


3496 


4 


23 3M 


61.1 


1521 


3859 


ha 


24 1)4 


61.0 


1578 


4098 


5b 


24 


61.6 


1532 


4035 


6a 


33 ^% 


61 8 


2186 


6031 


6b 


34 2^4 


61.8 


2239 


6294 


la 


45 2'^ 


61 9 


2950 


8553 


lib 


45 13^ 


61.8 


2944 


8440 


8a 


47 1?^ 


61.4 


3GG5 


9200 


Sb 


49 2X 


61.8 


3208 


9325 


9a 


38 3 


60.7 


2456 


6598 


96 


38 8X 


60.7 


2480 


6723 


10a 


34 1)4 


60.5 


2211 


5808 


106 


39 034 


61.6 


2535 


70G3 


11a 


44 2 


61.1 


2859 


8006 


116 


43 0^ 


61.2 


2756 


7776 


12a 


45 3'i 


62.2 


2966 


8409 


126 


45 IM 


62.2 


2939 


8112 


13a 


45 03^ 


62 2 


2913 


8311 


136 


43 33^ 


62.2 


2858 


8403 


14a 


45 1^ 


62.2 


2946 


8498 


146 


44 OX 


62.2 


2863 


8281 


15a 


43 1>^ 


62.1 


2801 


7699 


156 


43 1 


62.4 


2810 


8083 


16a 


49 2H 


61.7 


3230 


9932 


166 


50 0% 


61 7 


3293 


9928 


17a 


45 3 


62.1 


2948 


8218 


176 


42 214 


62.2 


2732 


7629 


18a 


24 


61.2 


1526 


3944 


186 


23 2% 


61.0 


1511 


3888 


19 


41 OX 


61.7 


2666 


7343 


20 


22 3 


60.8 


1445 


3662 


21 


32 0\i 


61.2 


2030 


5470 


22 


31 3 


61.0 


1994 


5334 



2 
3 

4 

5a 
56 
6a 
66 
7a 
76 
8a 
86 

9a 
96 

10a 
106 
11a 
116 
12a 
126 
13a 
136 
14a 
146 

15a 
156 

16a 
166 

17a 
176 

18a 
186 

19 

20 
21 



Produce per Acre, 
(For the Manures see 
and 203). 



ETC. 

pp. 202 



Dressed Corn. 



Bush. Pks. 

17 

18 2 
34 
17 
18 



2X 



2>^ 

2 

0/a 

3 

1 

2K 



29 3 

33 02£ 

29 2)4 

25 1)4 



19 



0)^ 

18 3 

24 2)4 

30 0% 

33 2 

29 
32 
29 
33 



31 



3 

314 
3 



33 1% 
32 2 



3K 
0)4 



33 1% 

30 0)4 

17 2)4 

24 IX 

24 2)4 



^ . 



lbs. 
60.7 
60.5 
62.0 
59.2 
59.5 

59.9 
60.1 
60.3 
60.9 
59.4 
59.5 
58.8 
58.7 

58.3 
57.3 

57.1 

58.9 
55.3 
56.3 
59.5 
60.2 
59.9 
60.4 
60.0 
60.0 

60.0 



58.2 

58.2 

60.8 
60.3 
60 9 
60.8 

58 7 

61.1 
60.8 
60.1 



1§$ 



lbs. 
1096 
1179 
22;37 
1072 
1168 

1157 
1143 
1753 
1811 
20a4 
2138 
1909 
2153 

1932 
1G05 

1285 
1805 
1210 
1580 
1940 
2172 
19^1 
2110 
1954 
2158 



2193 

2100 
2115 

1227 
1110 
2127 
2170 

1967 

1155 
1533 
1553 



lbs. 



6082 
2859 
3000 

2976 

2943 
4590 

4848 



5747 
6495 

5878 
4817 

3797 
5073 
3694 
4733 
5478 
6182 
5427 
5980 
5531 
5161 

5855 
6415 



7106 



2914 
6144 



5818 

2986 
3952 
4010 



206 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



Experiments at Rothamsted on the Growth op Wheat, Year 
AFTER Year, on the same Land. 



Table 


XIV.— Produce of the 


13th, 


Season, 1855-6. Seed (Red RostocU) 


sown 


November 13, 1855: Crop cut 


Aii<,'ust 26, aud carted September 3,] 


1856. 






Produce per Acre, etc. 




(For the Manures see pp. 202, 




aud 203.) 


^ 


Dressed Co?'n. 




1^ 


^ 




i^ 

-^f^ 


g 

s 




5^ 


^5 

1^ 


1 !i-« 




Bush. Pks. 


lb?. 


lbs. 


lbs. 





18 IX 


56.8 


1179 


3148 


1 


17 0% 


56.3 


1102 


3035 


2 


36 114 


58.6 


2277 


6594 


3 


14 2* 


54 3 


892 


2450 


4 


16 IX 


55.5 


1026 


2757 


5a 


18 314 


56.5 


1167 


3179 


5b 


20 m 


56.2 


1247 


3369 


6a 


27 114 


58.2 


1717 


4767 


6b 


28 OM 


58.5 


1755 


4848 


7a 


37 1 


58.0 


2312 


6872 


76 


36 214 


57.6 


2244 


6642 


8a 


40 0)4 


56.8 


2507 


7689 


8b 


37 3>'4 


57.1 


2400 


7489 


9a 


32 1)4 


57.2 


2019 


5894 


9b 


26 


56.3 


1679 


4831 


10a 


24 0'^ 


55 6 


1505 


4323 


10b 


27 2K 


57.2 


1727 


4895 


11a 


31 314 


57.3 


2001 


5518 


lib 


30 2)4 


57.5 


1946 


5389 


12a 


33 31/2 


58.7 


2102 


5949 


12& 


32 3)4 


58.8 


2079 


5804 


13a 


32 1% 


58 6 


2036 


5779 


136 


30 31^ 


58.9 


2008 


5659 


14a 


35 01^ 


58.6 


2195 


6397 


14& 


34 02i 


59 


2162 


6279 


15a 


30 0)4 


59.1 


1923 


5444 


156 


32 


59.4 


2045 


5797 


16a 


38 0)4 


58.5 


2426 


7955 


166 


37 3 


58.7 


2450 


7917 


17a 


31 2)4 


59.0 


1983 


5541 


176 


30 m 


59.1 


1935 


5400 


18a 


17 3)4 


57,8 


1140 


3152 


186 


18 


57.7 


1131 


3069 


19 


32 1 


58.9 


2059 


5621 


20 


17 0% 


57.7 


1075 


2963 


21 


22 1)4 


58.0 


1398 


3927 


22 


21 IH 


57.8 


1351 


3849 



Table 


XV.- 


-Produce 


OF THE 14th 


Season, 1856-7. Seed (Red Rostock) 


sown 


November 


6, 1856; Crop cut 


August 13 


and 


carted Aucust 22. 


1857. 












Produce 


per Acre, etc. 




(For 


the Manures 


see pp. 202 


1 




and 203.) ' ' 


Dressed Corn. 




II 


^ 






^ . 


i 






•^ 


^"^ 


s 


fjj sj § 








•<:'§ 










§ 


.^•s 


•s 


c??^ ** 






g> 


^fi, 


s 


g.«= 




Bush 


Pks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 





18 


214 


59.0 


1181 


2726 


1 


17 


2H 


59.0 


1118 


2650 


2 


41 


OK 


60.4 


2587 


5910 


3 


19 


3)i 


58.3 


1236 


2813 


4 


22 


IX 


58.8 


1386 


2958 


5a 


22 


3X 


59.0 


1409 


3026 


56 


24 


2J4 


58.8 


1512 


3247 


6a 


35 


IX 


59 9 


2211 


4968 


66 


35 


m 


59 8 


2193 


4950 


7a 


43 


1^ 


60 5 


2782 


6462 


76 


46 


1)4 


60.3 


2902 


6793 


8a 


47 


3 


60.8 


3058 


7355 


86 


48 


^y^ 


60.6 


3129 


7579 


9a 


43 


3 


60.1 


2767 


6634 


96 


36 


OM 


58.0 


2220 


5203 


10a 


29 


ox 


58.0 


1816 


4208 


106 


34 


2 


58.6 


2185 


5060 


lla 


39 





58.5 


2432 


5375 


116 


39 


ox 


58.0 


2397 


5317 


12rt 


43 


3X 


60 4 


2747 


6394 


126 


43 


2 


60.4 


2729 


6312 


13a 


42 


3 


60.6 


2714 


6421 


136 


43 


2 


60 5 


2739 


6386 


14a 


43 


3 


60.5 


2181 


6439 


146 


42 


3K. 


60.3 


2699 


6351 


15a 


42 


1% 


60.4 


2681 6368 


156 


44 


1% 


60.0 


2765 


6543 


16a 


48 


314 


60.5 


3131 


7814 


166 


50 





60.5 


3194 


7897 


17a 


26 


2% 


59.1 


1642 3700 


176 


25 


3=i 


58.8 


1583 3523 


18a 


41 


014 


59.7 


2566 6009 


186 


40 


0.4 


59.8 


2519 5884 

1 


19 


41 


2)4 


59.5 


2600 5793 


20 


19 


2% 


58.4 


1213 2777 


21 


24 





60.6 


1538 3353 


22 


23 


0)4 


60.6 


1491 


3298 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 



207 



Experiments at Rothamsted on the Growth of Wheat, Ybab 
AFTER Year, on the same Land. 



Table 


XVI 


—Produce 


of the 


15th 


Table 


XVII.— Produce 


of the 16th 


Season, 1857-8. Sekd (Red Rostock) 


Season. 1858-9. Seed (Red Rostock) 


Bown 


Nove 


niber 3 and 11, 1857 : Crop 


sown 


November 


4, 1858: Crop cut 


cut Anjiust 9, and carted August 20", 


August 4, and carted Au 


gust 20, 1859. 


1858. 


















Produce per Acre, etc. 




Produce 


PER 


Acre, etc. 




(For 


the Manures see pp. 202 




(For 


the Manures see pp. 202 






and 203.) 


1 




and 203.) 


^ 


Dressed Corn. 


1 




Dressed Corn. 


j 


E '^'-S' 


^ 


^^. 




»» 

1 

Q 


SI 




s 


1^ 




g^c. 






s. 


^^ 


g 


|S# 




Bush 


Pks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 




Bush 


Pks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 





20 


3 


61.2 


1332 


3234 





21 


214 


54.0 


1254 


3564 


1 


16 


1^4 


60.7 


1055 


2685 


1 


19 


3 


55.0 


1189 


3489 


2 


38 


314 


62.6 


2512 


6349 


2 


36 


0% 


56.5 


2203 


7073 


3 


18 





60.4 


1141 


2811 


3 


18 


IJi 


52.5 


1051 


3226 


4 


19 


0)^ 


61.1 


1206 


2879 


4 


19 


OK 


55.0 


1188 


3418 


5a 


18 


2M 


61.5 


1187 


2719 


5a 


20 


2'^ 


56.0 


1277 


3600 


5b 


19 


1 


61.4 


1227 


2870 


56 


20 


2;^ 


56.0 


1273 


3666 


6a 


28 


2'^ 


62.1 


1818 


4395 


6a 


29 


2'/, 


56.5 


1808 


5555 


6b 


29 


Q}4 


62.1 


1850 


4563 


66 


30 


0)i 


56.5 


1855 


5708 


la 


38 


214 


61.9 


2450 


6415 


7a 


34 


2% 


55.9 


2097 


6774 


76 


39 


2J4 


62.3 


2530 


6622 


76 


34 


2)i 


55.9 


2089 


6892 


8a 


41 


3X 


61.8 


2680 


7347 


8a 


34 


3 '4 


54 


2068 


7421 


86 


41 


3>i 


61.7 


2675 


7342 


86 


34 


0% 


53.4 


2007 


7604 


9a 


37 


23^ 


60.8 


2384 


6701 


9a 


30 





54.5 


1806 


7076 


96 


23 


2 


58 8 


1470 


4158 


96 


24 


2'4 


50.5 


1412 


5002 


10a 


22 


ZH 


59.6 


1439 


3569 


10a 


18 


3% 


51.5 


1207 


3937 


106 


27 


3 


61.4 


1775 


4390 


106 


25 


2 


52.5 


1500 


4920 


11a 


30 


^yi 


60.5 


1977 


4774 


11a 


26 


3H 


51.4 


1628 


51.55 . 


116 


33 


OH 


60.4 


2099 


5117 


116 


27 


314 


51.3 


1698 


5275 


12a 


37 


SK 


62.1 


2437 


6100 


12a 


34 


2)4 


54.5 


2060 


6610 


126 


37 


034 


62.1 


2387 


6060 


126 


34 


3^ 


54.8 


2115 


6858 


13a 


37 


08 


62.1 


23S4 


6077 


13a 


34 


094 


55.0 


2037 


6774 


136 


37 


OM 


62.7 


2307 


6074 


136 


34 


m 


55.0 


2087 


6894 


14a 


37 


SH 


62.1 


2413 


6150 


14a 


34 


IX 


54.5 


2054 


6817 


146 


38 


Vi 


62.0 


2436 


6146 


146 


34 


2^ 


54.5 


2074 


6774 


15a 


35 


1>^ 


62.6 


2285 


5800 


15a 


34 


ox 


55.0 


2053 


6826 


156 


37 


2 


62.8 


2436 


6134 


156 


35 


OK 


55 


2095 


7088 


16a 


41 


3 


62.1 


2702 


7499 


16a 


34 


3X 


52.6 


2026 


7953 


166 


42 


0'/, 


62.1 


2717 


7530 


166 


34 


IX 


52.6 


2005 


7798 


17a 


33 


1^ 


62.5 


21.50 


5353 


17a 


21 


1^ 


55.0 


1247 


3730 


176 


33 


3'4' 1 62.5 


2181 


5455 


176 


19 


3 


54.5 


1168 


3541 


18a 


22 


3?i 


62.3 


1472 


3480 


18a 


32 


ZH 


55.5 


1973 


6506 


186 


20 


23^ 


62.4 


13.38 


3305 


186 


32 


2 


56.0 


1980 


6630 


19 


33 


IJi 


62.5 


2177 


5362 


19 


30 


2 


55.5 


1903 


5926 


20 


17 





60.3 


1089 


2819 


20 


17 


314 


52.5 


10.39 


3256 


21 


24 


1^ 


61.5 


1574 


3947 


21 


26 


IH 


54.0 


15.38 


4723 


22 


22 





61.5 


1412 


3592 


22 


24 


OX 


55.0 


1460 


4440 



208 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



Experiments at Rothamsted on the Growth of Wheat, Yeab 
AFTER Year, on the same land. 

Table XVIII.— Produce of the 17th , 
Season, 1859-60. Seed (Red RostociO 
Bown November 17, 1859; Crop cut 
September 17 aud 19, aud carted Octo- 
ber 5, 1860. 





Produce 


PER Acre, etc. 




(For 


the Manures 


see pp. 202 






aud 203.) 


^ 


Dressed Corn. 




5> 


§ 


t 




1 




.>3 


SI 


« 


lai 




i 


^Ki 


S 


^c--^ 




Bush 


Pks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 





14 


1^ 


53.5 


826 


2271 


1 


12 


13£ 


52.8 


717 


2097 


2 


32 


1-4 


55.5 


1864 


5304 


3 


12 


3X 


52.6 


738 


2197 


4 


14 


2 


53.0 


832 


2352 


5a 


15 


2X 


54.0 


903 


2483 


5b 


16 


0^ 


53.1 


935 2595 


60 


21 


0)4 


53 7 


1210 3393 


6* 


22 


3 '4 


54.2 


1326 


3719 


7a 


27 


3.^ 


54 3 


1612 


4615 


76 


27 


2^4 


54.3 


1597 


4734 


8a 


30 


3 


52.8 


1759 


5039 


&> 


31 


2?4 


52.3 


1787 


5600 


9a 


32 


2>^ 


51.5 


1858 


6635 


96 


19 


2^ 


48.5 


1155 


4285 


10a 


15 


OX 


49.5 


905 


3118 


106 


18 


2X 


51.0 


KMJO 


3420 


■ 11a 


22 


^M 


51 


12:0 


37*3 


116 


22 


1% 


51.2 


1307 


4000 


12a 


28 


OX 


53.4 


1648 


4878 


126 


26 


2 '4^ 


53.5 


1577 


4664 


13a 


26 


0»4 


54.3 


1575 


4568 


136 


27 


ox 


53.8 


1600 


4637 


14a 


27 


IX 


53.7 


1583 


4636 


146 


27 


0,^4 


53.2 


1563 


4666 


15a 


25 


IX 


53 8 


1.510 


4387 


156 


28 





54.0 


1614 


4704 


16a 


32 


2 


52 


1856 


5973 


166 


32 


3 


51.7 


1889 


6096 


17a 


24 


0'^ 


54.1 


1409 


4109 


176 


26 


I'/a 


54.3 


1548 


4518 


18a 


15 


1'4' 


54.5 


929 


2649 


186 


16 


l}i 


54.6 


963 


2706 


19 


24 


OH 


53.0 


1435 


4178 


20 


12 


OH 


5t.5 


1702 


2155 


21 


15 


2 


52 5 


893 


2639 


22 


13 


3>i 


53.8 


847 


2414 



Table 


XIX 


—Produce 


of the 


18th 


Season. 1860-1. b 


eeu (Red Rostock) 


8own 


November 


5, 1860; Crop cut 


Anj,nist 20 


aud 


carted August 27, 


1861. 










Produce 


PER Acre, etc. 




(For 


the Manures see pp. 202 


. 




aud 203.) 


Dressed Corn. 


1 




§ 


>, 






1 


tl 


•§ 


^*l 




a> 


^fq 


g 


gw05 




Bush 


Pks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 





15 


I'/s 


57.6 


1001 


2769 


1 


12 


334 


57.6 


828 


2215 


2 


34 


3/, 


60.5 


2202 


5303 


3 


11 


IJi 


57.4 


736 


1990 


4 


11 


3X 


58.0 


863 


2193 


5a 


15 


iX 


59.1 


1047 


2540 


56 


15 


IX 


59.0 


1082 


2692 


6a 


27 


1^4^ 


59.5 


1755 


4328 


66 


27 


S\i 


59.4 


1818 


4501 


7a 


35 


2H 


59.0 


2203 


5764 


76 


34 


1^4 


59.0 


2183 


5738 


8a 


36 





58,3 


2290 


6203 


86 


34 


0J4 


58.5 


2190 


5985 


9a 


33 


3 


56.8 


2102 


6607 


96 


13 


3 


53.9 


909 


3079 


10a 


12 


3X 


55.0 


854 


2784 


106 


15 


S% 


55.5 


1033 


3196 


11a 


23 


Vi 


55.3 


1455 


4033 


116 


25 


o\ 


55.8 


1578 


4223 


I2a 


32 


1'^ 


58.1 


2009 


5201 


126 


33 


l?i 


58.7 


2144 


5481 


13a 


33 


1^ 


59.9 


21 68 


5486 


136 


35 





60.0 


2304 


5794 


14a 


33 


0'.{ 


59.1 


2125 


5502 


146 


33 


3^i 


59.3 


2173 


5476 


15a 


34 


134 


60 


2188 


5506 


156 


34 


3 


60 2 


2249 


5727 


16a 


36 


^% 


58.0 


2338 


6761 


166 


37 


2 


58.6 


2432 


6775 


17a 


19 


1 


59.3 


1229 


2982 


176 


18 


0% 


50.1 


1106 


2829 


18a 


32 


IX 


59.6 


20,50 


5144 


186 


33 


1/2 


59.5 


2122 


5446 


19 


32 


2 


58.8 


2107 


5345 


20 


13 


ox 


57 9 


872 


2340 


21 


16 


^% 


58.2 


1109 


2749 


• 22 


19 


2i 


58.5 


1306 


3263 



EXPERIMENTS ON AVHEAT. 



209 



EXPEBIMENTS AT ROTHAMSTED ON THE GROWTH OP WHEAT, YeAB 

AFTER Year, on the same Land. 



Table XX.— Produce of the 19th| 
Season, 1861-2. Seed (Red Rostock)! 
sown October 25, 18(51 ; Crop cut| 
August 29, aud carted September 12, 
1862. 





Produce 


PER Acre, etc. 




(For 


the Manures see pp. 202 1 








aud 203.) 


^ 


Dressed Corn. 


. 




§ 




# • 


?-^ 


1 






■S 


r< >< 










1 


1^ 


1 


|ll 




Bush 


Pks. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 





19 


SM 


58.5 


1228 


3258 


1 


16 


2?4 


58.0 


1024 


27T2 


2 


38 


^X 


61.0 


2447 


6642 


3 


16 





.57.8 


996 


2709 


4 


16 


2^ 


58.5 


1049 


2711 


Sa 


17 


S'£ 


59.0 


1119 


2959 


8b 


17 


iM 


59.0 


1101 


2961 


6a 


27 


2 


59.5 


1715 


4554 


6& 


28 


3';C 


59 8 


1797 


4897 


7a 


35 


2^4 


59.3 


2200 


6106 


76 


36 


mi 


59.5 


22(55 


6178 


8a 


39 


3 


59.2 


2477 


7200 


86 


39 


Oi/a 


59.0 


2452 


7087 


9a 


43 


I5i 


59.5 


2688 


8738 


96 


25 


3M 


56.3 


1641 


4897 


10a 


23 


014 


56.5 


1457 


4050 


106 


24 


314 


57.5 


1600 


4443 


11a 


26 


2^ 


58.0 


1TU6 


4548 


116 


27 


014 


58.0 


1734 


4607 


12a 


34 


1^4 


58.0 


2096 


5745 


126 


33 


0% 


58.0 


2025 


5634 


18a 


31 


si 


58.0 


1953 


5542 


136 


32 


2^4 


58.0 


2019 


5691 


14a 


30 


iM 


58.0 


1886 


5283 


146 


32 


0.4 


58.1 


2008 


5558 


15a 


30 


iM 


58.3 


1872 


5268 


156 


32 


2?4 


58.3 


2029 


5787 


16a 


36 


1'4 


58.0 


2225 


6752 


166 


36 


OX 


57.5 


2233 


6730 


17a 


27 


3X 


58.1 


1747 


4827 


176 


27 


2^4 


58.1 


1685 


4762 


18a 


18 


1)1 


58.5 


1168 


3161 1 


186 


18 


2?4 


58 5 


1195 


3335 i 


19 


23 


IX 


57.2 


1479 


4132 ; 


20 


12 


IxY 


57.3 


818 


2335 


21 


20 


IX 


58.1 


1273 1 3465 i 


S2 


20 


0J4 


58.0 


1250 


1 3430 



Table XXI.— Produce of the 20th 
Season, 1862-3. Seed (Red Rostock) 
sown November 17, 1862 ; Crop cut 
Au<,nist 10, and carted August 18, 
1863. 



5a 
56 
6a 
66 
7a 
76 
8a 
86 

9a 
96 

10a 
106 
11a 
116 
12a 
126 
13a 
1.36 
14a 
146 

15a 
156 

16a 
166 

17a 
176 
18a 
186 

19 

20 
21 
22 



Bush. Pks. 
22 01/, 



Produce per Acre, etc. 

(For the Majuires see pp. 202 
and 203.) 



Dressed Corn. 




1 
1 

3 

IX 
39 3 

53 114 

54 
56 
54 



54 
53 
53 
53 
54 
53 

48 

48 

56 
55 

21 
21 
46 
46 



2M 



214 



39 OX 
43 214 
45 



1 

is 

0% 
IX 
IX 
0?4 



46 2?i 

17 2?4 

27 21/, 

29 3 






lbs. 
62.6 
62.8 
63.1 
62.7 
62.3 

63.0 
63.0 
62.3 
62.3 
62.6 
62.5 
62.3 
62.3 

62.1 
62.5 

62.6 
62.8 
62.5 
62.1 
62.1 
62.2 
62.6 
62.5 
62.5 
62.5 



lbs. 
1429 
1334 
2886 
1127 
1303 

1283 
1296 
2522 
2534 
3477 
3507 



3576 
2723 

2587 
2858 
2979 
3060 
3533 
3454 
3453 
3439 
3527 
3450 



62.51 3114 
62.9 3127 



111 



lbs. 

3,254 

3.079 

7.165 

2,727 

2,957 

2.970 
3.0H4 
6.236 
6.250 
9,380 
9.385 
10.383 
10,048 

9,888 



6,068 
6.914 
7,212 
7,519 
8,976 
8,819 
9,192 
9,238 
8,986 
8,749 

8,276 
8,240 



62.4 1 3710 10.717 
63.3 3607 1 10,332 



62.8 1370 

62.8 1389 

62.6 .3006 

62.8, 3009 

62.9' 3054 

62.5* 11.37 
62 5 1796 
62.41 1907 



3,288 
3,292 
7,889 
7,737 

7,577 

2.609 
4.279 
4,599 



210 TALKS ON MANURES. 

The ninth season (1851-2), was unusually cold in June and wet 
in August. It will be seen tliat the wheat, both in quantity and 
quality, is the poorest since the^ commencement of the experi- 
ments. The unmanured plot gave less than 14 bushels of dressed 
grain per acre; the plot with barn-yard manure, less than 28 
bushels, and the best yield in the whole series was not quite 29 
bushels per acre, and only weighed 55 lbs. per bushel. On the same 
plot, the year before, with precisely the same manure, the yield 
was nearly 37 bushels per acre, and the weight per bushel, 63^ lbs. 
So much for a favorable and an unfavorable season. 

The tenth season (1852-3), was still more unfavorable. The 
autumn of 1852 was so wet that it was impossible to work the 
land and sow the wheat until the 16th of March 1853. 

You will see that the produce on the unmanured plot was less 
than 6 bushels per acre. With barn-yard manure, 19 bushels, and 
with a heavy dressing of ammonia-salts and minerals, not quite 26 
bushels per acre. With a heavy dressing of superphosphate, not 
quite 9J bushels per acre, and with a full dressing of mixed 
mineral manures and superphosphate, 10 bushels per acre. 

The weight per bushel on the unmanured plot was 45 lbs. ; with 
mixed mineral manures, 48^ lbs. ; with ammonia-sails alone, 48^ 
lbs. ; with barn-yard manure, 51 lbs. ; and with ammonia-salts and 
mixed mineral manures, 52^ lbs. 

Farmers are greatly dependent on the season, but the good 
farmer, who keeps up the feriility of his land stands a better chance 
of making money (or ot losing less), than the farmer who depends 
on the unaided products of the soil. The one gets 6 bushels per 
acre, and 1,413 lbs. of straw of very inferior quality; the 
other gets 20 to 26 bushels per acre, and 5,000 lbs. of straw. And 
you must recollect that in an unfavorable season we are pretty 
certain to get high prices. 

The eleventh season (1853-4,) gives us much more attractive- 
looking figures ! We have over 21 bushels per acre on the plot 
which has grown eleven crops of wheat in eleven years without 
any manure. 

With barn-yard manure, over 41 bushels per acre. With am- 
monia-salts alone (17a), 45f bushels. With ammonia-salts and 
mixed minerals, (165), over 50 bushels per acre, and 6,635 lbs. of 
straw. A total produce of nearly b\ tons per acre. 

The twelfth season (1854-5), gives us 17 bushels of wheat per acre 
on the continuously unmanured plot. Over 34i bushels on the 
plot manured with barn-yard manure. And I think, for the first 
time since the commencement of the experiments, this plot pro- 



EXPERIMENTS OX WHEAT. 211 

duces the largest yield of any plot in the field. And well it may, 
for it has now had, in twelve years, 168 tons of barn-yard manure 
per acre ! 

Several of the plots with ammonia-salts and mixed minerals, 
are nearly up to it in grain, and ahead of it in straw. 

The thirteenth season (1855-6), gives 14^ bushels on the unmanur- 
ed plot ; over 36^ bushels on the plot manured with barn-yard ma- 
nure ; and over 40 bushels on 8(/, dressed with 600 lbs. ammonia- 
salts and mixed mineral manures. It will be noticed that 800 lbs. 
ammonia-salts does not give quite as large a yield this year as 600 
lbs. I suppose 40 bushels per acre was all that the season was capa- 
ble of producing, and an extra quantity of ammonia did no good. 
400 lbs. of ammonia-salts, on la, produced 37i bushels per acre, 
and 800 lbs. on 165, only 37f bushels. That extra half bushel 
of wheat was produced at considerable cost. 

The fourteenth season (1856-7), gives 20 bushels per acre on the 
unmanured plot, and 41 bushels on the plot with barn-yard 
manure. Mixed mineral manures alone on 5<z gives nearly 23 
bushels per acre. Mixed mineral manures and 200 lbs. ammonia- 
salts, on 6a, give 35^ bushels. In other words the ammonia gives 
us over 12 extra bushels of wheat, and 1,140 lbs. of straw. 
Mineral manures and 400 lbs. ammonia-salts, on 7&, give 46i 
bushels per acre. Mineral manures and 600 lbs. ammonia-salts, on 
8&, give nearly 49 bushels per acre. Mineral manures and 800 lbs. 
of ammonia-salts, on 166, give 50 bushels per acre, and 4,703 lbs. 
of straw. 

" This exceedingly heavy manuring," said the Deacon, " does 
not pay. For instance, 

"200 lbs. ammonia-salts give an increase of 12i bushels per acre. 
400 " " " " 23i " 

600 " " '' " 26 

800 " " " "27 

The Deacon is right, and Mr. Lawes and Dr. Gilbert call especial 
attention to this point. The 200 lbs. of ammonia-salts contain 
about 50 lbs. of ammonia, and the 400 lbs., 100 lbs. of ammonia. 
And as I have said, 100 lbs. of ammonia per acre is an unusually 
heavy dressing. It is as much ammonia as is contained in 1,000 
lbs. of average Peruvian guano. We will recur to this subject. 

The fifteenth season (1857-8,) gives a yield of 18 bushels of wheat 
per acre on the continuously unmanured plot, and nearly 39 
bushels on the plot continuously manured with 14 tons of barn- 
yard manure. Mixed mineral manures on 5a and 5&, give a mean 
yield of less than 19 bushels per acre. 



100 " 


(( 


(400 


150 " 


( 


(600 


200 " 


« 


(800 



212 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Mixed mineral manures and 100 lbs. ammonia-salts, on plots 21 
and 22, give 23i bushels per acre. In other words : 

25 lbs. ammonia (100 lbs. ammonia-salts), gives an increase of 4t bush. 
50 " " (200 *' '' « ), " " " " 10 " 

""' "" " " ), " " " " 20 " 

(( (< \ << (( <t i( 23 << 

»» « y <4 (( <( II 23 " 

"It takes," said the Deacon, "about 5 lbs. of ammonia to pro- 
duce a bushel of wheat. And according to this, 500 lbs. of Peru- 
vian guano, guaranteed to contain 10 per cent of ammonia, would 
give an increase of 10 bushels of wheat." 

"This is a very interesting matter," said I, "but we will not 
discuss it at present. Let us continue the examination of the sub- 
ject. I do not propose to make many remarks on the tables. You 
must study them for yourself. I have spent hours and days and 
weeks making and pondering over these tables. The more you 
study them the more interestmg and instructive they become." 

The sixteenth season (1858-9), gives us a little over 18^ bushels 
on the unmanured plot. On the plot manured with 14 tons farm- 
yard manure, 36|^ bushels ; and this is the highest yield this season 
in the wheat-field. Mixed mineral manures alone, (mean of plot 
5a and 5J), give 20^ bushels. 

25 lbs. ammonia (100 lbs. ammonia-salts), and mixed minerals, 
give 25 J bushels, or an increase over minerals alone of 4f bushels. 

50 lbs. ammonia, an increase of 9? bushels. 

100 " " '' " " 14 '* 

150 " " " « " 14 " 

200 '* '* ** " " 14- " 

The season was an unfavorable one for excessive manuring. It 
"Was too wet and the crops of wheat when highly manured were 
much laid. The quality of the grain was inferior, as will be seen 
from the light weight per bushel. 

The seventeenth season (1859-60,) gives less than 13 bushels per 
acre on the unmanured plot ; and 32J bushels on the plot ma- 
nured with 14 tons farm-yard manure. This season (1860), was a 
miserable year for wheat in England. It was both cold and wet. 
Mixed mineral manures, on plots 5a and 5&, gave nearly 16 bushels 
per acre. 25 lbs. ammonia, in addition to the above, gave less 
than 15 bushels. In other words it gave no increase at all. 

50 lbs. ammonia, gave an increase of 6 bushels. 

100 " " " '' " " 111 "■ 

150 " " " " " " 15i *' 

200 " " " *' " " 16J " 

It was a poor year for the wheat-grower, and that, whether he 
manured excessively, liberally, moderately, or not at all. 



BXPEKIMENTS ON WHEAT. 



213 



♦• I do not quite see that," said the Deacon, " the farm-yard ma- 
nure gave an increase of nearly 20 bushels per acre. And the quality 
of the grain must have been much better, as it weighed 8i lbs. 
per bushel more than the plot unmanured. If the wheat doubled 
hi price as it ought to do in such a poor year, I do not see but that 
the good farmer who had m previous years made his land rich, 
would come out ahead." 

" Good for the Deacon," said I. " ' Is Saul also among the 
prophets ? ' " If the Deacon continues to study these experiments 
much longer, we shall have him advocating chemical manures and 
high farming 1 

The eighteenth season (1860-1,) gave less than Hi bushels per 
acre on the unmanured plot; and nearly 35 bushels on the ma- 
nured plot. 

The mixed mineral manures, gave nearly .15^ bushels. 

i» <» " and 25 lbs. ammonia ..lo* 

« u li u 50 u " 27* " 

i( ii u " 100 " " 35 " 

(( (t ii '« 150 " " 35 " 

<i <t »i " 200 *' " 37 " 

The nineteenth season (1861-2,) gave 16 bushels per acre on the 
unmanured plot, and over 38i bushels on the plot manured with 
farm-yard manure. 

Mixed mineral manures, gave nearly 18 bushels per acre. 

« «' " and 25 lbs. ammonia.. 20? 

c( « « " 50 " " 28t " 

<t « t{ « 100 " *' 36 " 

<t tt a a 150 " <' 39i •' 

u u it " 200 " " 36i " 

The twentieth season (1862-3), gave 17i bushels on the unma- 
nured plot, and 44 bushels per acre on the manured plot. 

Mixed mineral manures alone gave 19f bushels per acre. 

« " " and 25 lbs. ammonia.. 2SI " 

tc it " " 50 " " 36* " 

u a tt a 100 "■ " 53* " 

«i « •« " 150 " ** 55* " 

it it u «« 200 " " 56 " 

When we consider that this is the twentieth wheat-crop in suc- 
cession on the same land, these figures are certainly remarkable. 

" They are so," said the Deacon, " and what to me is the most sur- 
prising thing about the whole matter is, that the plot which has had 
no manure of any kind for 25 years, and has grown 20 wheat-crops 
in 20 successive years, should still produce a crop of wheat of 17J 
bushels per acre. Many of our farmers do not average 10 bushels 
per acre. Mr. Lawes must either have very good land, or else the 



214 TALKS ON MANUKES. 

climate of England is better adapted for wheat-growing than West- 
ern New York." 

" I do not think," said I, " that Mr. Lawes' land is any better 
than yours or mine; and I do not think the climate of England is 
any more favorable for growing wheat without manure than our 
climate. If there is any difference it is in our favor." 

" Why, then," asked the Doctor, " do we not grow as much 
wheat per acre as Mr. Lawes gets from his continuously unmanured 
plot?" 

This is a question not difficult to answer. 

1st, We grow too many weeds. Mr. Lawes plowed the land twice 
every year; and the crop was hoed once or twice in the spring to 
kill the weeds. 

2d. We do not half work our heavy land. We do not plow it 
enough — do not cultivate, harrow, and roll enough. I have put 
wheat in on my own farm, and have seen others do the same thing, 
when the drill on the clay-spots could not deposit the seed an inch 
deep. There is "plant-food" enough in these '"clay-spots" to 
give 17 bushels of wheat per acre — or perhaps 40 bushels — but we 
shall not get ten bushels. The wheat will not come up until 
late in the autumn — the plants will be weak and thin on the 
ground ; and if they escape the winter they will not get a fair hold 
of the ground until April or May. You know the result. The 
straw is full of sup, and is almost sure to rust; the grain shrinks 
up, and we harvest the crop, not because it is worth the labor, but 
because we cannot cut the wheat with a machine on the better 
parts of the field without cuttmg these poor spots also. An acre 
or two of poor spots pull down the average yield of the field 
below the average of Mr. Lawes' well-worked but unmanured land. 

3d. Much of our wheat is seriously injured by stagnant water in 
the soil, and standing water on the surface. I think we may safely 
say that one-third the wheat-crop of this county (Monroe Co., N. 
Y.), is lost for want of better tillage and better draining — and yet 
we think we have as good wheat-land and are as good farmers as 
can be found in this country or any other! 



Unless we drain land, where drainage is needed, and unless we 
work land thoroughly that needs working, and unless we kill the 
weeds or check their excessive growth, it is poor economy to sow 
expensive manures on our wheat-crops. 

But I do not think there is much danger of our falling into this 
error. The farmers who try artificial manures are the men who 
usually take the greatest pains to make the best and most manure 



LIME AS A MANURE. 215 

from the animals kept on the farm. They know what manures cost 
and what they are worth. As a rule, too, such men are good farm- 
ers, and endeavor to work their land thoroughly and keep it clean. 
When this is the case, there can be little doubt that we can often 
use artificial manures to great advantage. 

" You say," said the Deacon, who had been looking over the 
tables while I was talking, " that mixed mineral manures 
and 50 lbs. of ammonia give 39| bushels per acre. Now these 
mixed mineral manures contain potash, soda, magnesia, and super- 
phosphate. And I see where superphosphate was used without any 
potash, soda, and magnesia, but with the same amount of ammonia, 
the yield is nearly 46 bushels per acre. This does not say much in 
favor of potash, soda, and magnesia, as manures, for wheat. Again, 
I see, on plot 10b, 50 lbs. of ammonia, alone, gives over43i bushels 
per acre. On plot 115, 50 lbs. ammonia and superphosphate, give 
46i bushels. Like your father, I am inclined to ask, ' Wliere can I 
get this ammonia .' ' " 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
LIME AS A MANURE. 

These careful, systematic, and long-continued experiments of 
Lawes and Gilbert seem to prove that if you have a piece of 
land well prepared for w^heat, which will produce, without manure, 
say 15 bushels per acre, there is no way of making that land pro- 
duce 30 bushels of wheat per acre, without directly or indirectly 
furnishing the soil with a liberal supply of available nitrogen or 
ammonia. 

" What do you mean by directly or indirectly ? " asked the 
Deacon. 

*' What I had ia my mind," said I, " was the fact that I have 
seen a good dressing of lime double the yield of wheat. In such 
a case I suppose the lime decomposes the organic matter in the 
soil, or in some other way sets free the nitrogen or ammonia 
already in the soil ; or the lime forms compounds in the soil which 
attract ammonia from the atmosphere. Be this as it may, the 
facts brought out by Mr. Lawes' experiments warrant us in con- 
cluding that the increased growth of wheat was connected in some 
way with an increased supply of available nitrogen or ammonia. 



216 TALKS ON MANURES. 

My father used great quantities of lime as manure. He drew 
it a distance of 13 miles, and usually applied it on land intended 
for wheat, spreading it broad-cast^ after the land had received its 
last plowing, and harrowing it in, a few days or weeks before sow- 
ing the wheat. He rarely applied less than 100 bushels of stone- 
lime to the acre — generally 150 bushels. He used to say that a 
small dose of lime did little or no good. He wanted to use enough 
to change the general character of the land— to make the light land 
firmer and the heavy land lighter. 

While I was with Mr. Lawes and Dr. Gilbert at Rothamsted, I 
went home on a visit. My father had a four-horse team drawing 
lime every day, and putting it in large heaps in the field to slake, 
before spreading it on the land for wheat. 

*' I do not believe it pays you to draw so much lime," said I, with 
the confidence which a young man who has learned a little of agri- 
cultural chemistry, is apt to feel in his newly acquired knowledge. 

" Perhaps not," said my father, " but we have got to do some- 
thing for the land, or the crops will be poor, and poor crops do not 
pay these times. What would you use instead of lime ? " — "Lime 
is not a manure, strictly speaking," said I ; " a bushel to the acre 
would furnish all the lime the crops require, even if there was not 
an abundant supply already in the soil. If you mix lime with 
guano, it sets free the ammonia ; and when you mix lime with the 
soil it probably decomposes some compounds containing ammonia 
or the elements of ammonia, and thus furnishes a supply of ammo- 
nia for the plants. I think it would be cheaper to buy ammonia 
in the shape of Peruvian guano." 

After dinner, my father asked me to take a walk over the farm. 
We came to a field of barley. Standing at one end of the field, 
about the middle, he asked me if I could see any difierence in the 
crop. *' Oh, yes," I replied, " the barley on the right-hand is far 
better than on the left hand. The straw is stifFer and brighter, and 
the heads larger and heavier. I should think the right half of the 
field will be ten bushels per acre better than the other." 

"So I think," he said, "and now can you tell me why?" — 
"Probably yoa manured one half the field for turnips, and not the 
other half." — " No." — " You may have drawn ofi'the turnips from 
half the field, and fed them ofi" by sheep on the other half." — " No, 
both sides were treated precisely alike."— I gave it up — " Well," 
said he, " this half the field on the riirht-hand was limed, thirty 
years ago, and that is the only reason I know for the difference. 
And now you need not tell me that lime does not pay." 

I can well understand how this might happen. The system of 



LIME AS A MANURE. 217 

rotation adopted was, Ist clover, 2d wheat, 3d turnips, 4tli barley, 
seeded with clover. 

Now, you put on, say 150 bushels of lime for wheat. After the 
wheat the land is manured and sown with turnips. The turnips 
are eaten off on the land by sheep ; and it is reasonable to suppose 
that on the half of the field dressed with lime there would be a 
much heavier crop of turnips. These turnips being eaten off by 
the sheep would furnish more manure for this half than the other 
half. Then again, when the land was in grass or clover, the 
limed half would afford more and sweeter grass and clover than 
the other half, and the sheep would remain on it longer. They 
would eat it close into the ground, going only on to the other half 
when they could not get enough to eat on the limed half. More 
of their droppings would be left on the limed half of the field. 
The lime, too, would continue to act for several years ; but even 
after all direct benefit from the lime had ceased, it is easy to un- 
derstand why the crops might be better for a long period of time. 

" Do you think lime would do any good," asked the Deacon, " on 
our limestone land ? " — I certainly do. So far as I have seen, it 
does just as much good here in Western New York, as it did on 
my father's farm. I should use it very freely if we could get it 
cheap enough — but we are charged from 25 to 30 cts. a bushel for 
it, and I do not think at these rates it will pay to use it. Even gold 
may be bought to dear. 

"You should burn your own lime," said the Deacon, " you have 
plenty of limestone on the farm, and could use up your down 
wood." — I believe it would pay me to do so, but one man cannot 
do everything. I think if farmers would use more lime for manure 
we should get it cheaper. The demand would increase with com- 
petition, and we should soon get it at its real value. At 10 to 15 
cents a bushel, I feel sure that we could use lime as a manure with 
very great benefit. 

" I was much interested some years ago," said the Doctor, " in 
the results of Prof. Way's investigations in regard to the absorp- 
tive powers of soils." 

His experiments, since repeated and confirmed by other chem- 
ists, formed a new epoch in agricultural chemistry. They afforded 
some new suggestions in regard to how lime may benefit land. 

Prof. Way found that ordinary soils possessed the power of sep- 
arating, from solution in water, the different earthy and alkaline 
substances presented to them in manure ; thus, when solutions of 
salts of ammonia, of potash, magnesia, etc., were made to filter 
10 



218 TALKS ON MANURES. 

slowly through a bed of dry soil, five or six inches deep, arranged 
in a flower-pot, or other suitable vessel, it w^as observed that the 
liquid which ran through, no longer contained any of the ammonia 
or other salt employed. The soil had, in some form or other, re- 
tained the alkaline substance, while the water in which it was pre- 
viously dissolved passed through. 

Further, this power of the soil was found not to extend to the 
whole salt of ammonia or potash, but only to the alkali itself. If, 
for instance, sulphate of ammonia were the compound used in the 
experiments, the ammonia would be removed from solution, but 
the filtered liquid would contain sulphuric acid in abundance — 
not in the free or uncombined form, but united to lime; instead of 
sulphate of ammonia we should find sulphate of lime in the solu- 
tion ; and this result was obtained, whatever the acid of the salt 
experimented upon might be. 

It was found, moreover, that the process of filtration was by no 
means necessary ; by the mere mixing of an akaline solution with 
a proper quantity of soil, as by shaking them together in a bottle, 
and allowing the soil to subside, the same result was obtained. 
The action, therefore, was in no way referable to any physical 
law brought^into operation by the process of filtration. 

It was also found that the combination between the soil and 
the alkaline substance was rapid, if not instantaneous, partaking 
of the nature of the ordinary union between an acid and an alkali. 

In the course of these experiments, several different soils were 
operated upon, and it was found that all soils capable of profitable 
cultivation possessed this property in a greater or less degeee. 

Pure sand, it was found, did not possess this property. The 
organic matter of the soil, it was proved, had nothing to do with 
it. The addition of carbonate of lime to a soil did not increase its 
absorptive power, and indeed it was found that a soil in which car- 
bonate of lime did not exist, possessed in a high degree the power 
of removing ammonia or potash from solution. 

To what, then, is the power of soils to arrest ammonia, potash, 
magnesia, phosphoric acid, etc., owing? The above experiments 
lead to the conclusion that it is due to the day which they contain. 
In the language of Prof. Way, however, 

" It still remained to be considered, whether the whole clay 
took any active part in these changes, or whether there existed in 
clay some chemical compound in small quantity to which the 
action was due. This question was to be decided by the extent to 
which clay was able to unite with ammonia, or other alkaline 
bases; and it soon became evident that the idea of the clay as a 



LIME AS A MANURE. 219 

whole, Deing the cause of the absorptive property, was inconsis- 
tent with all the ascertained laws of chemical combination." 

After a series of experiments, Prof. Way came to the conclusion 
that there is in clays a peculiar class of double silicates to which 
the absorptive properties of soil are due. He found that the double 
silicate of alumina and lime, or soda, whether found naturally in 
soils or produced artificially, would be decomposed when a salt of 
ammonia, or potash, etc., was mixed with it, the ammonia, or pot- 
ash, taking the place of the lime or soda. 

Prof. Way's discovery, then, is not that soils have " absorptive 
properties "—that has been long known— but that they absorb am- 
monia, potash, phosphoric acid, etc., by virtue of the double sili- 
cate of alumina and soda, or lime, etc., which they contain. 

Soils are also found to have the power of absorbing ammonia, 
or rather carbonate of ammonia, from the air. 

" It has long been known," says Prof. Way, " that soils acquire 
fertility by exposure to the influence of the atmosphere — hence one 
of the uses of fallows. * * I find that clay is so greedy of ammonia, 
that if air, charged with carbonate of ammonia, so as to be highly 
pungent, is passed through a tube filled with small fragments of 
dry clay, every particle of the, gas is arrested^'' 

This power of the soil to absorb ammonia, is also due to the 
double silicates. But there is this remarkable difference, that while 
either the lime, soda, or potash silicate is capable of removing the 
ammonia from solution^ the lime silicate alone has the power of ab- 
sorbing it from the air. 

This is an important fact. Lime may act beneficially on many 
or most soils by converting the soda silicate into a lime silicate, or, 
in other words, converting a salt that will not absorb carbonate of 
ammonia from the air, into a salt that has this important property. 

There is no manure that has been so extensively used, and with 
such general success as lime, and yet, " who among us," remarks 
Prof. Way, " can say that he perfectly understands the mode in 
which lime acts ? " We are told that lime sweetens the soil, by neu- 
tralizing any acid character that it may possess ; that it assists tba 
decomposition of inert organic matters, and therefore increases the 
supply of vegetable food to plants : that it decomposes the remains 
of ancient rocks containing potash, soda, magnesia, etc., occurring 
in most soils, and that at the same time it liberates silica from these 
rocks ; and lastly, that lime is one of the substances found uni- 
formly ana in considerable quantity in the ashes of plants, that 
therefore its application may be beneficial simply as furnishing a 
material indispensable to the substance of a plant. 



220 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



These explanations are no doubt good as far as they go, but 
experience furnishes many facts which cannot be explained by any 
one, or all, of these suppositions.- Lime, we all know, does much 
good on soils abounding in organio matter, and so it frequently 
does on soils almost destitute of it. It may liberate potash, soda, 
silica, etc., from clay soils, but the application of potash, soda, and 
silica has little beneficial effect on the soil, and therefore we can- 
not account for the action of lime on the supposition that it ren- 
ders the potash, soda, etc., of the soil available to plants. Further- 
more, lime effects great good on soils abounding in salts of lime, 
and therefore it cannot be that it operates as a source of lime for 
the structure of the plant. 

None of the existing theories, therefore, satisfactorily account 
for the action of lime. Prof. Way's views are most consistent with 
the facts of practical experience ; but they are confessedly hypo- 
thetical ; and his more recent investigations do not confirm the 
idea that lime acts beneficially by converting the soda silicate into 
the lime silicate. 

Thus, six soils were treated with lime water until they had ab- 
sorbed from«ne and a half to two per cent of their weight of lime. 
This, supposing the soil to be six inches deep, would be at the rate 
of about 300 bushels of lime per acre. The amount of ammonia in 
the soil was determined before liming, after liming, and then after 
being exposed to the fumes of carbonate ammonia until it had ab- 
sorbed as much as it would. The following table exhibits the results: 



No. 1. No. 2, No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. No. 6. 



0.293 
0.1G9 

2.226 
1.906 



0.181 
0.102 

2.066 
2.557 



0.085 
0.040 

3.297 



0.109 0.127 
0.050 



1.076 
1.097 



0.083 
0.051 



3.265 1.827 
2.615 1 2.028 



Ammonia in 1,000 grains of natural 

soil 

Ammonia in 1,000 grains of soil after 

liming 

Ammonia in 1,000 grains of soil after 

liming and exposure to the vapor of 

ammonia 

Ammonia in 1,0)0 grains of soil after 

exposure to ammonia without lim ing 

No. 1. Surface soil of London clay. 

No. 2. Same soil from H to 2 feet below the surface. 

No. 3. Same soil ^ feet below the surface. 

No. 4. Loam of tertiary drift 4 feet below the surface. 

No. 5. Gault clay— surface soil. 

No. 6. Gault clay 4 feet below the surface. 

It is evident that lime neither assisted nor interfered with the 

absorption of ammonia, and hence the beneficial effect of liming 

on such soils must be accounted for on some other supposition. 

This negative result, however, does not disprove the truth of Prof. 

Way's hypothesis, for it may be that the silicate salt in the natural 

soils was that of lime and not that of soda. Indeed, the extent to 



LIME AS A MANUPwE. 221 

which the natural soils absorbed ammonia — equal, in No. 3, to 
about 7,000 lbs. of ammonia per acre, equivalent to the quantity 
contained in 700 tons of barn-yard manure — shows this to have 
been the case. 

The lime liberated one-half the ammonia contained in the soil. 

"This result," says Prof. Way, "is so nearly the same in all 
cases, that we are justified in believing it to be due to some special 
cause, and probably it arises from the existence of some compound 
silicates containing ammonia, of which lime under the circum- 
stances can replace one-half — forming, for instance, a double sili- 
cate of alumina, with half lime and half ammonia— such com- 
pounds are not unusual or new to the chemist." 

This loss of ammonia from a heavy dressing of lime is very 
great. A soil five inches deep, weighs, in round numbers, 500 tons, 
or 1,000,000 lbs. The soil. No. 1, contained .0293 per cent of am- 
monia, or in an acre, five inches deep, 293 lbs. After liming, it 
contained .0169 per cent, or in an acre, five inches deep, 169 lbs. 
The loss by liming is 124 lbs. of ammonia per acre. This is equal 
to the quantity contained in 1200 lbs. of good Peruvian guano, or 
12i tons. of barn-yard manure. r- 

In commenting on this great loss of ammonia from liming, 
Prof. Way observes : 

" Is it not possible, that for the profitable agricultural use, the 
ammonia of the soil is too tightly locked up in it ? Can we sup- 
pose that the very powers of the soil to unite with and preserve 
the elements of manure are, however excellent a provision of 
nature, yet in some degree opposed to the growth of the abnormal 
crops which it is the business of the farmer to cultivate ? There 
is no absolute reason why such should not be the case. A provision 
of nature must relate to natural circumstances ; for instance, con? 
pounds of ammonia may be found in the soil, capable of giving out 
to the agencies of water and air quite enough of ammonia for the 
growth of ordinary plants and the preservation of their species ; 
but this supply may be totally inadequate to the necessities of man. 
* * * Now it is not impossible that the laws which preserve the 
supply of vegetable nutrition in the soil, are too stringent for the 
requirements of an unusual and excessive vegetation, such as the 
cultivator must promote. 

" In the case of ammonia locked up in the soil, lime may be the 
remedy at the command of the farmer— his means of rendering 
immediately available stores of wealth, which can otherwise only 
slowly be brought into use. 

" In this view, lime would well deserve the somewhat vague 



222 TALKS ON MANURES. 

name that has been given it, namely, that of a * stimulant ' ; for its 
application would be in some sort an application of ammonia, 
while its excessive application,, by driving off ammonia, would 
lead to all the disastrous effects which are so justly attributed to it. 
"I do not wish to j)ush this assumption too far," says Prof. 
Way, in conclusion, *' but if there be any truth in it, it points out 
the importance of employing lime in small quantities at short in- 
tervals, rather than in large doses once in many years." 



" The Squire, last year," said the Deacon, " drew several hundred 
bushels of refuse lime from the kiln, and mixed it with his ma- 
nure. It made a powerful smell, and not an agreeable one, to the 
passers by. He put the mixture on a twenty-acre field of wheat, 
and he said he was going to beat you." 

" Yes," said I, " so I understood — but he did not do it. If he 
had applied the lime and the manure separately, he would have 
stood a better chance ; still, there are two sides to the question. 
I should not think of mixing lime with good, rich farm-yard ma- 
nure; but with long, coarse, strawy manure, there would be less 
injury, and possibly some advantage." 

"The Squire," said the Deacon, "got one advantage. He had 
not much trouble in drawing the manure about the land. There 
was not much of it left." 

Lime does not always decompose organic matter. In certain 
conditions, it will preserve vegetable substances. We do not want 
to mix lime with manure in order to preserve it; and if our object 
is to increase fermentation, we must be careful to mix sufficient soil 
with the manure to keep it moist enough to retain the liberated 
ammonia. 



Many farmers who use lime for the first time on wheat, are apt 
to feel a little discouraged in the spring. I have frequently seen 
limed wheat in the spring look worse than where no lime was 
used. But wait a little, and you will see a change for the better, 
and at harvest, the lime will generally give a good account of itself. 

There is one thing about lime which, if generally true, is an im- 
portant matter to our wheat-growers. Lime is believed to hasten 
the maturity of the crop. " It is true of nearly all our cultivated 
crops," says the late Professor Johnston, " but especially of those 
of wheat, that their full growth is attained more speedily when 
the land is limed, and that they are ready for the harvest from 
ten to fourteen days earlier. This is the case even with buck- 



LIME AS A MANURE. 223 

wheat, which becomes sooner ripe, though it yields no larger a 
return wheu lime is applied to the land on which it is grown." 

In Qistricts where the midge affects the wheat, it is exceedingly 
important to get a variety of wheat tliat ripens early; and if lime 
will favor early maturity, without checking the growth, it will be 
of great value. 



A correspondent in Delaware writes: "I have used lime as a 
manure in various ways. For low land, the best way is, to sow it 
broadcast while the vegetation is in a green state, at the rate of 40 
or 50 bushels to the acre ; but if I can not use it before the frost 
kills the vegetation, I wait until the land is plowed in the spring, 
when I spread it on the plowed ground in about the same quantity 
as before. Last year, I tried it both ways, and the result was, my 
crop was increased at least fourfold in each instance, but that 
used on the vegetation was best. The soil is a low, black sand." 

A farmer writes from New Jersey, that he has used over 
6,000 bushels of lime on his farm, and also considerable guano and 
phosphates, but considers that the lime has paid the best. His 
farm has more than doubled in real value, and he attributes this 
principally to the use of lime. 

" We lime," he says, " whenever it is convement, but prefer to 
put it on at least one year before plowing the land. We spread 
from 25 to 40 bushels of lime on the sod in the fall ; plant with 
corn the following summer ; next spring, sow with oats and 
clover; and the next summer, plow under the clover, and sow 
with wheat and timothy. We have a variety of soils, from a 
sandy loam to a stiff clay, and are certain that lime will pay on 
all or any of them. Some of the best farmers in our County com- 
menced liming when the lime cost 25 cts. a bushel, and their farms 
are ahead yet, more in value, I judge, than the lime cost. The 
man who first commences using lime, will get so far ahead, while 
his neighbors are looking on, that they will never catch up." 

Another correspondent in Hunterdon Co., K J., writes: "Ex- 
perience has taught me that the best and most profitable mode of 
applying lime is on grass land. If the grass seed is sown in the 
fall with the wheat or rye, which is the common practice with us 
in New Jersey, as soon as the harvest comes off the next year, we 
apply the lime with the least delay, and while fresh slacked and in 
a dry and mealy state. It can be spread more evenly on the 
ground, and is in a state to be more readily takf^n up by the fine 
roots of the plants, than if allowed to get wet and clammy. It is 
found most beneficial to keep it as near the surface of the ground 



224 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

as practicable, as the specific gravity or weight of this mineral 
manure is so great, that we soon find it too deep in the ground for 
the fibrous roots of plants to derive the greatest possible benefit 
from its use. With this method of application are connected sev- 
eral advantages. The lime can be hauled in the fall, after the 
busy season is over, and when spread on the sod in this way, comes 
in more immediate contact with the grass and grass-roots than 
when the land is first plowed. In fields that have been limed in 
part in this manner, and then plowed, and lime applied to the 
remainder at the time of planting with corn, I always observe a 
great difierence in the corn-crop; and in plowing up the stubble 
the next season, the part limed on the sod is much mellower than 
that limed after the sod was broken, presenting a rich vegetable 
mould not observed in the other part of the field." 

A farmer in Chester Co., Pa., also prefers to apply lime to newly- 
seeded grass or clover. He puts on 100 bushels of slaked lime per 
acre, either in the fall or in the spring, as most convenient. He 
limes one field every year, and as the farm is laid off into eleven 
fields, all the land receives a dressing of lime once in eleven years. 



In some sections of the country, where lime has been used for 
many years, it is possible that part of the money might better be 
used in the purchase of guano, phosphates, fish-manure, etc. ; while 
in this section, where we seldom use lime, we might find it great- 
ly to our interest to give our land an occasional dressing of lime. 

The value of quick-lime as a manure is not merely in supplying 
an actual constituent of the plant. If it was, a few pounds per 
acre would be sufficient. Its value consists in changing the chem- 
ical an'l physical character of the soil — in developing the latent 
mineral plant-food, and in decomposing and rendering available 
organic matter, and in forming compounds which attract ammonia 
from the atmosphere. It may be that we can purchase this am- 
monia and other plant- food cheaper than we can get it by using 
lime. It depends a good deal on the nature and composition of 
the soil. At present, this question can not be definitely settled, 
except by actual trial on the farm. In England, where lime was 
formerly used in large quantities, the tendency for some time has 
been towards a more liberal and direct use of ammonia and phos- 
phates in manures, rather than to develop them out of the soil by 
the use of lime. A judicious combination of the two systems will 
probably be found the most profitable. 



Making composts with old sods, lime, and barn-yard manure, is 



LIME AS A MANURE. 225 

a time-honored practice in Europe. I have seen excellent results 
from the application of such a compost on meadow-land. The 
usual plan is, to select an old hedge-row or headland, which has 
Iain waste for many years. Plow it up, and cart the soil, sods, 
etc., into a long, narrow heap. Mix lime with it, and let it lie six 
months or a year. Then turn it, and as soon as it is fine and mel- 
low, draw it on to the land. I have assisted at making many a 
heap of this kind, but do not recollect the proportion of lime used; 
in fact, I question if we had any definite rule. If we wanted to 
use lime on the land, we put more in the heap ; if not, less. The 
manure was usually put in when the heap was turned. 

Dr. Voelcker analyzed the dry earth used in the closets at the 
prison in Wakefield, England. He found that : 

Mtro- Phosphor- 
gen, ic Acid. 

10 tons of dry earth before using contained 62 lbs. 36 lbs. 

10 tons of dry earth after being used once contained. .. 74 " 50 " 

10 tons of dry eartb after being used twice contained. . 84 " 88 " 

10 tons of dry earth after being used thrice contained. 102 " 102 " 

After looking at the above figures, the Deacon remarked : "You 
say 10 tons of dry earth before being used in the closet contained 
62 lbs. of nitrogen. How much nitrogen does 10 tons of barn- 
yard manure contain ? " 

"That depends a good deal on what food the animals eat. Ten tons 
of average fresh manure would contain about 80 lbs. of nitrogen." 

*' Great are the mysteries of chemistry ! " exclaimed the Deacon. 
"Ten tons of dry earth contain almost as much nitrogen as 10 
tons of barn-yard manure, and yet you think that nitrogen is the 
most valuable thing in manure. What shall we be told next ? " 

" You will be told, Deacon, that the nitrogen in the soil is in 
such a form that the plants can take up only a small portion of it. 
But if you will plow such land in the fall, and expose it to the 
disintegrating effects of the frost, and plow it again in the spring, 
and let the sun and air act upon it, more or less of the organic 
matter in the soil will be decomposed, and the nitrogen rendered 
soluble. And then if you sow this land to wheat after a good 
summer- fallow, you will stand a chance of having a great crop." 

This dry earth which Dr. Voelcker analyzed appeared, he says, 
" to be ordinary garden soil, containing a considerable portion of 
clay." After it had been passed once through the closet, one ton 
of it was spread on an acre of grass-land, which produced 2 tons 
8 cwt. of hay. In a second experiment, one ton, once passed 
through the closet, produced 2 tons 7 cwt. of hay per acre. We 
are not told how much hay the land produced without any dress- 



226 TALKS ON MANURES. 

ing at all. Still we may infer that this top-dressing did considera- 
ble good. Of one thing, however, there can be no doubt. This one 
ton of earth manure contained -^nly 1^ lb. more nitrogen and l^lb. 
more phosphoric acid than a ton of the dry earth itself. Why 
then did it prove so valuable as a top-dressing for grass ? I will 
not say that it was due solely to the decomposition of the nitro- 
genous matter and other plant-food in the earth, caused by the 
working over and sifting and exposure to the air, and to the action 
of the night-soil. Still it would seem that, so far as the beneficial 
effect was due to the supply of plant-food, we must attribute it to 
the earth itself rather than to the small amount of night-soil 
which it contained. 

It is a very common thing in England, as I have said before, for 
farmers to make a compost of the sods and earth from an old 
hedge-row, ditch, or fence, and mix with it some lime or barn- 
yard manure. Then, after turning it once or twice, and allow- 
ing it to remain in the heap for a few months, to spread it on 
meadow-land. I have seen great benefit apparently derived from 
such a top-dressing. The young grass in the spring assumed a 
rich, dark green color. I have observed the same effect where 
coal-ashes were spread on grass-land; and I have thought that 
the apparent benefit was due largely to the material acting as a 
kind of mulch, rather than to its supplying plant-food to the grass. 



I doubt very much whether we can afford to make such a com- 
post of earth with lime, ashes, or manure in this country. But I 
feel sure that those of us having rich clay land containing, in an 
inert form, as much nitrogen and phosphoric acid as Dr. Voelcker 
found in the soil to be used in the earth-closet at Wakefield, can 
well afford to stir it freely, and expose it to the disintegrating and 
decomposing action of the atmosphere. 

An acre of dry soil six inches deep weighs about 1,000 tons; and 
consequently an acre of such soil as we are talking about would 
contain 6,200 lbs. of nitrogen, and 3,600 lbs. of phosphoric acid. In 
other words, it contains to the depth of only six inches as much 
nitrogen as would be furnished by 775 tons of common barn-yard 
manure, and as much phosphoric acid as 900 tons of manure. 
With such facts as these before us, am I to blame for urging farmers 
to cultivate their land more thoroughly ? I do not know that my 
land or the Deacon's is as rich as this English soil ; but, at any rate, 
I see no reason why such should not be the case. 



MANURES FOR BAKLET. 227 

CHAPTEE XXIX. 
MANURES FOR BARLEY. 

Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert have published the results of experi- 
ments with different manures on barley grown annually on the 
same land for twenty years in succession. The experiments com- 
menced in 1852. 

The soil is of the same general character as that in the field on 
the same farm where wheat was grown annually for so many 
years, and of which we have given such a full account. It is what 
we should call a calcareous clay loam. On my farm, we have 
what the men used to call " clay spots." These spots vary in size 
from two acres down to the tenth of an acre. They rarely pro- 
duced even a fair crop of corn or potatoes, and the barley was sel- 
dom worth harvesting. Since I have drained the land and taken 
special pains to bestow extra care in plowing and working these 
hard and intractable portions of the fields, the "clay spots" have 
disappeared, and are now nothing more than good, rather stiff, clay 
loam, admirably adapted for wheat, barley, and oats, and capable 
of producing good crops of corn, potatoes, and mangel-wurzels. 

The land on which Mr. Lawes' w^heat and barley experiments 
were made is not dissimilar in geneTal character from these "clay 
spots." If the land was only half-worked, we should call it clay; 
but being thoroughly cultivated, it is a good clay loam. Mr. 
Lawes describes it as " a somewhat heavy loam, with a subsoil of 
raw, yellowish red clay, but resting in its turn upon chalk, which 
provides good natural drainage." 

The part of the field devoted to the experiments was divided 
into 24 plots, about the fifth of an acre each. 

Two plots were left without manure of any kind. 

One plot was manured every year with 14 tons per acre of farm- 
yard manure, and the other plots " with manures," to quote Dr. 
Gilbert, " which respectively supplied certain constituents of farm- 
yard manure, separately or in combination." 

In England, the best barley soils are usually lighter than the 
best wheat soils. This is probably due to the fact that barley 
usually follows a crop of turnips — more or less of which are eaten 
off on the land by sheep. The trampling of the sheep compresses 
the soil, and makes even a light, sandy one firmer in texture. 

In this country, our best wheat laud is also oar best barley 
land, provided it is in good heart, and is very thoroughly worked. 



228 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



It is no use sowing barley on heavy land half worked. It will do 
better on light soils ; but if the clayey soils are made fine and mel- 
low, they produce with us the best barley. 

In chemical composition, barle^ is quite similar to wheat. Mr. 
Lawes and Dr. Gilbert give the composition of a wheat-crop of 30 
bushels per acre, 1,800 lbs. of grain, and 3,000 lbs. of straw; and 
of a crop of barley, 40 bushels per acre, 2,080 lbs. grain, and 2,500 
lbs. of straw, as follows : 





In Grain. 


In Straw. 


In Total Produce. 




Wheat. 


Barley. 


Wheat. 


Barley. 


Wheat. 


Barky. 


Nitrogen 

Phosphoric acid. 
Potash 


lbs. 

32. 

16. 

9.5 

1. 

3.5 

0.5 


lbs. 
33. 
17. 
11.5 

1.5 

4. 
12. 


lbs. 
13. 

7. 
20.5 

9. 

3. 
99 5 


lbs. 
12. 

5. 

18.5 
10.5 

2.5 
63. 


lbs. 
45. 
23. 
30. 
10. 
6.5 
100. 


lbs. 
45. 

12 


Magnesia 

Silica 


6.5 

75 











A few years ago, when the midge destroyed our wheat, many 
farmers in Western New York raised "winter barley," instead of 
*• winter wheat," and I have seen remarkably heavy crops of this 
winter barley. It is not now grown with us. The maltsters would 
not pay as much for it as for spring barley, and as the midge 
troubles us less, our farmers are raising winter wheat again. 

Where, as with us, we raise winter wheat and spring barley, the 
difierence between the two crops, taking the above estimate of 
yield and proportion of grain to straw, would be : 

1st. Almost identical composition in regard to nitrogen, phos- 
phoric acid, potash, lime, and magnesia ; but as it has more straw, 
the wheat-crop removes a larger amount of silica than barley. 

2d. The greatest difference is in the length of time the two 
crops are in the ground. We sow our winter wheat the last of 
August, or the first and second week in September. Before win- 
ter sets in, the wheat-plant often throws out a bunch of roots a 
foot in length. During the winter, though the thermometer goes 
down frequently to zero, and sometimes 10° to 15° below zero, yet 
if the land is well covered with snow, it is not improbable that the 
roots continue to absorb more or less food from the ground, and 
store it up for future use. In the spring, the wheat commences to 
grow before we can get the barley into the ground, though not to 
any considerable extent. I have several times sown barley as soon 
as the surface-soil was thawed out five or six inches deep, but with 
a bed of solid frozen earth beneath. 

3d. Two-rowed barley does not ripen as early as winter wheat, 
but our ordinary six-rowed barley is ready to harvest the same 
time as our winter wheat. 



MANURES FOR BARLEY. 229 

4th. We sow our barley usually in May, and harvest it in July, 
The barley, therefore, has to take up its food rapidly. If we ex- 
pect a good growth, we must provide a good supply of food, and 
have it in the proper condition for the roots to reach it and absorb 
it; in other words, the land must be not only rich, but it must be 
so well worked that the roots can spread out easily and rapidly in 
search of food and water. In this country, you will find ten good 
wheat-growers to one good barley grower. 

" That is so," said the Deacon ; "but tell us about Mr. Lawes' 
experiments. I have more confidence in them than in your spec- 
ulations. And first of all what kind of land was the barley c-rown 
on ? " 

" It is," said I, "rather heavy land— as heavy as what the men 
call * clay-spots,' on my farm." 

"And on those clay-spots," said the Deacon, "you either get 
very good barley, or a crop not worth harvesting." " 

" You have hit it exactly, Deacon," said I. " The best barley I 
have this year (1878) is on these clay-spots. And the reason is, 
that we gave them an extra plowing last fall with a three-horse 
plow. That extra plowing has probably given me an extra 30 
bushels of barley per acre. The barley on some of the lighter por- 
tions of the field will not yield over 25 bushels per acre. On the 
clay-spots, it looks now (June 13) as though there would be over 
50 bushels per acre. It is all headed out handsomely on the clay- 
spots, and has a strong, dark, luxuriant appearance, while on the 
sand, the crop is later and has a yellow, sickly look." 

" Tou ought," said the Doctor, " to have top-dressed these poor, 
sandy parts of the field with a little superphosphate and nitrate 
of soda." 

" It would have paid wonderfully well," said I, " or, perhaps, 
more correctly speaking, the loss would have been considerably 
less. "We have recently been advised by a distinguished writer, to 
apply manure to our best land, and let the poor land take care of 
itself. But where the poor l?nd is ii the same field with the good, 
we are obliged to plow, harrow, cultivate, sow, and harvest the 
poor spots, and the question is, whether we shall make them capa- 
ble of producing a good crop by the application of manure, or bo 
at all the labor and expense of putting in and harvesting a crop 
of chicken-feed and weeds. Artificial manures give us a grand 
chance to make our crops more uniform." 

"You are certainly right there," said the Doctor, " but let us 
examine the Rothamsted experiments on barley." 

You will find the results in the following tables. The manures 



230 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

used, are in many respects the same as were adopted in the wheat 
experiments already given. The mineral or ash constituents were 
supplied as follows : 

Potash — as sulphate of potash. 
Soda — as sulphate of soda. 
Magnesia — as sulphate of magnesia. 
Lime — as sulphate, phosphate, and superphosphate. 
PJiosphoric acid — as bone-ash, mixed with sufficient sulphuric 
acid to convert most of the insoluble earthy phosphate of 
lime into sulphate and soluble superphosphate of lime. 
Sulphuric acid— in the phosphatic mixture just mentioned ; in 
sulphates of potash, soda, and magnesia ; in sulphate of am- 
monia, etc. 
Chlorine — in muriate of ammonia. 
Silica — as artificial silicate of soda. 
Other constituents were supplied as under : 
Nitrogen — as sulphate and muriate of ammonia ; as nitrate of 

soda ; in farm-yard manure ; in rape-cake. 
Non-nitrogenous organic matter^ yielding hy decomposition^ car- 
Ionic acid, and other products — in yard manure, in rape-cake. 
The artificial manure or mixture for each plot was ground up, or 
otherwise mixed, with a sufficient quantity of soil and turf-ashes 
to make it up to a convenient measure for equal distribution over 
the land. The mixtures so prepared were, with proper precautions, 
sown broadcast by hand ; as it has been found that the application 
of an exact amount of manure, to a limited area of land, can be 
best accomplished in that way. 

The same manures were used on the same plot each year. Any 
exceptions to this rule are mentioned in foot-notes. 



MANURES FOR BARLEY. 



231 



Experiments on the Growth of Barley, tear after tear, on the 

same land, without manure, and with different descriptions 

OF Manure. Hoos Field, Rothamsted, England. 

TABLE I.— SHOWING, taken together with the foot-note^, the description and 

QUANTITIES OF THE MANURES APPLIED PER ACRE ON EACH PLOT, IN EACH 
YEAR OF THE TWENTY, 1852-1871 INCLUSIVE. 

[N. B. This table has reference to all the succeeding Tables]. 



Plots. 



1 O. 

2 O. 

3 O. 

4 O. 

1 A. 

2 A. 
SA. 

4 A. 



ri AA. 

12 AA. 
3 AA. 

L4 AA. 



1 AAS. 

2 AAS. 



MANURES PEE ACRE, PER ANNUM {unlens Otherwise stated 
in the foot-notes) . 



•«. 


n c. 
2 c. 

3C. 




l4C. 


ttUg; 


M. 


6 0. 


5 A. 


;U 



Unmanured continuously 

3}4 cwts. Superphosphate of Lime ♦ '.'.'. 

200 lbs. t Sulphate of Potass, 100 lbs. t Sulptate Soda, 100 lbs. 
Sulphate Magnesia 

200 lbs. t Sulphate Potass. 100 lbs. t Sulphate Soda, ioo'ibs*. 
Sulphate Magnesia, 3}>i cwts. Superpho.-paate 

200 lbs. Ammonia-salts 5 

203 lbs. Ammonia-salts, 3X cwts. Superphosphate .'.'!.' 

200 lbs. Ammonia-salts, 2U0 lbs. t Sulphate Potass, 100 lbs. t 
Sulphate Soda, 100 lbs. Sulphate Magnesia 

200 lbs. Ammonia salts, 200 lbs. t Sulphate Potass, 100 lbs. j 
Sulphate Soda, 100 lbs. Sulphate Magnesia, 3>^ cwts. Su- 
perphosphate 

5 lbs. Nitrate Soda '.'.'.'.'.'. 

275 lbs. Nitrate Soda, 31^ cwts. Suoerphosphate '.'.'. 

275 lbs. Nitrate Soda, 200 lbs. t Sulphate Potass, 100 lbs. ± 
Sulphate Soda, 100 Iba. Sulphate Magnesia 

2<5 lbs. Nit! ate Soda, 2C0 lbs. t Sulphate Potass, 100 lbs. ± 
Sulphate Soda, 100 lbs. Sulphate Magnesia, 3K cwts. Su- 
perphosphate 

275 lbs. Nitrate Soda, 400 lbs. IT Silicate Soda .*.'.'.'.'.*" 

27a lbs. Nitrate Soda, 400 lbs. IT Silicate Soda, 3>< cwts. Su- 
perphosphate 

275 lbs. Nitrate Soda, 400 lbs. IT Silicate Soda, 200 lbs. t'siil- 
phate Potass, 100 lbs. J Sulphate Soda, 100 lbs. Sulphate 
Magnesia 

275 lbs. Nitrate Soda, 400 lbs. 1[ Silicate Soda' 200 Ibs'.'t Sul- 
phate Potass, 100 lbs. t Sulphate Soda, 100 lbs. Sulphate 

,^?^^P^-i^' 3>< cwts. Superphosphate 

1000 lbs. Kape-cake 

J^22J?^- Rape-cake, 3J< cwts. Superphosphate.... !.'!.'! "!!".'! 

1000 lbs. Rape-cake, 200 lbs. t Sulphate Potass, 100 lbs, ± Sul- 

^^hate Soda, 100 lbs. ?3u!phate Magnesia 

1000 lbs. Rape-cake, 200 lbs. t Sulphate Potass, 100 lbs. t Sul- 
phate Soda, 100 lbs. Sulphate Magnesia, 3>< cwts. Super- 
phosphate 

2T5 lbs. Nitrate Soda '.....!.;.;!!!!."!!!.'; 

275 lbs. JSfitrate Soda (550 lbs. Nitrate for 5 years, 1853, 4, 5.' 6'. 
and7) 

100 lbs. tt Sulphate Soda, 100 lbs. Sulphate Magnesiaj's^ 
cwts. Superphosphate ^commencing 1855; 1852, 3, and 4. 
unmanured) 

200 lbs. t Sulphate Potass, 3>^ cwts. Superphosphate "(200 lbs'. 
Ammonia-salts also, for the first year, 1852, only) .... 

200 lbs. t Sulphate Potass, 3>^ cwts. Superphosphate, 200 lbs. 
Ammonia-salts 

Unmanured continuously !!!!!!.*! 

Ashes burnt->oil and turf) 

14 Tons Farmyard-Manure .'.'.!.*."!!!' 



Plots. 



1 o. 

2 0. 

3 0, 

4 O. 

1 A. 

2 A. 



4 A. 

1 AA.1 

2 AA. 

3 AA.[|| 



4 AA.J 
1 AAS. 



3 AAS. 



4 AAS. 
1 C. 
2C. 



3C. 
4C. 

1 N.; 

2N.: 

M. 

5 O. 

5 A. 



tt 



NOTES TO TABLE I. 

,. .t.,?M '^■Jy*^- Superphosphate of Lime'— in all cases, made from 300 lbs. Bone- 
asD, 150 lbs. Sulphuric acid sp. gr. 1.7 land waters. 

t Sulphate Potass— 300 lbs. per annum for the first 6 years, 1852-7. 

t Sulphate Soda-200 lbs. per annum for the first 6 years, 1852-7. 

5 The ''Ammonia-salts "—in all cases equal parts of Sulphate and Muriate of Am. 
monia of Commerce. 

II Plots " A A " and " AAS "—first 6 years, 1852-7, instead of Nitrate of Soda, 400 
lbs. Ammonia-salts per annum ; next 10 years, 1858-67, 200 lbs. Ammonia-salts per 
annum ; 18G8, and since, 275 lbs. Nitrate of Soda per annum. '275 lbs. Nitrate of Soda 
is reckoned tocmtaia the same amount of Nitrogen as 200 lbs. " Ammonia-salts." 
.^i 5/^'*^^? ''A^'l""*^^ application of Silicates did not commence until 1864; in 
♦64-0-6, and 7, 200 lbs. Silicate of Soda and 200 lbs. Silicate of Lime were applied per 
acre, but in 1863, and since, 400 lbs. Silicate of Soda, and no Silicate of Lime. These 
plots comprise, respectively, one half of the original •' AA " plots, and, excepting the 
addition of the Silicates, have been, and are, in other respects, mauured in the same 
way as the " AA " plots. 

•• 2000 lbs. Hape-cake per annum for the first 6 years, and 1000 lbs. only, each year 
Blnce. tt 300 lbs. Sulphate Potass, and 3^ cwts. Superphosphate of Lime, without 
J^^^^^^^i^^,.^^^'^^' ^^- ^^"^ S^ear 1 1852) ; Nitrate alone each year Biace. tX Sulphata 
Boda— 200 lbs. per annum 1855, 6, and 7. 



332 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



EXPBBIMENTS ON THE GROWTH OP BARLET, TEAB AFTER TeAR, ON 

TiONa OF Manure, Hoos 

TABLE II.— DRESSED 

[N.B. The double vertical lines show that there was a change in the deecrip- 

Table /., and foot-notes 













Harvests 


. 












1 


1852 


1853 


1854 


1855 


1856 


1857 


1858 


1859 


1860 1861 


1862 


1863 


1 o. 

2 0. 

3 0. 

4 0. 


bushels. 

27'^ 
2S% 
26K8 
325^ 


bush. 
253^ 
33>tr 

275^ 
35% 


bush. 
35 

40% 

3S)^ 


bus 

31 

3614 

37% 

34X 


bus 
13% 
1734 
16% 
19% 

17 


bush. bush. 

26% 1 21% 
3314 282i 
32 2414 
392i 30% 


bus bus bus 
133^:1314 I614 
19%! 15:5^25 
15% ,151/4 18% 
19.\ 18.1429% 


bus bus 

i6;i^ 22% 

21% 32% 
1934 27% 
25% 33 


Means 


23 ?i 


30% 


32^ 1 2514 


17ii|l5% 22% 


20 3i 28% 


1 A. 

2 A. 

3 A. 

4 A. 


36% 

40X 
38i| 


38% 
401^ 

36;^ 

3314 
38S~ 


4734 
60)^ 
50 
60% 

^49^ 


44^25 
473£|29% 
44,lJ!28.^^ 
48% 31M 

4514281^ 

48 [3614 
50%'31i^ 
47 ,^25% 
49% 37% 


38% 311^ 
56X 51% 
42% 34 'i 

57% 1 511,^ 


15% 26% 3031^ 
34>^ 43% 55 
16% 28 13234 
34% 43j^ 54% 


31%' '42% 
48% 61% 
353^ 48% 
47% 55% 


Means 


483^ 42% 25% 35% 43,¥ 40% 52>^ 


1 AA. 

2 AA. 

3 AA. 

4 AA. 


44^ 
4334 
41 M 
45^^ 


40 ?i 

42^ 

44)^ 


56% 
63 '4 

51 '/2 

62?i 


49?i 
66 Ni 
49% 
64% 


39% 21X25% 
56 14 35% 4314 
40% 20% 303^ 
56 '4' ,3534 46k 

48% ,28% 36% 


35 31)^49 
5534 51 ,60)^ 
36% 3614 54 
55% 4334 59)^ 

45% 41% 5554 


Means 


43M 


421/8 58/^ 


48% 32% 


57M 


1 AAS. 

2 AAS. 

3 AAS. 

4 AAS. 


























Means 














1 










1 C. 

2 C. 

3 C. 

4 C. 


S 
r 


3!)% 
361/8 
35?^ 
401/8 


603^ 
60% 
56 14 
60^4 


48X36?i 
53 '4 37% 
48% ,32% 
51%|35% 


64% 
62 '-.4 
60 14 
6214 


5334 38K 
57?! 41 
52 34% 
57% 135 


31^ 561^ 
3634 56% 
35 '4 51% 
40?4 53% 


41 

^3^ 

45X 


51% 

55 

53% 

54% 


Means 


36M 


37% 


591^ 50% 35'. 


62 '4 


55 I3714 36%'54i/, 41% 535^ 


1 N. 
2N. 

M. 
5 0. 

5 A. 

7 


\ (25%) 

(363^) I 
36,^ 

29 
251^ 

33 


34 ?g 
371/8 

271^ 
40J^ 

27% 
361/8 


49'^ '50 !2Si^ 
5314 j49?^'42 

1 '321/8' 18'^ 
Z0% \Zi% I91/8 
51% 47% 331/3 

35% '371^ 15% 
^^H 361-4 15% 

56% 50% 32% 


47% 
58 1 

24.1^ 
31% 
54% 

34% 
31% 

5114 


37.?i 24% 
43% 26>i 

25% 19K 
25% 16>i 
481^ 33>^ 

26H 17% 
253^ 14% 

55 '40 


27% 
2934 

10% 
10% 
39 

1214 

12% 

41% 


3314 353^ 511^ 
41% 38%' 53% 

1 1 
27% 23 5,' 28% 
285^ 173^ 291^ 
49% 46% 51i^ 

i 1 
16% \%H 27^ 
17% 19 28% 

54%4934 59:!< 



0) 



Averages of 4 years, 4 years, and 8 
last 10 years, 



years, 
and total 17 



(2) Averages of 9 years, 
years. C*) Averages 



MANURE FOR BARLEY. 



233 



THE SAME Land, without Manure, and with different desorip- 

FlELD, ROTHAMSTED, ENGLAND. 
CORN PER ACRE— bushels. 

tion, or quantity, of Manure, at the period indicated, for particulars of which see 
thereto, p. 231.] 



Habvests. 


AvERAGK Annual. 




1864 


1865 


1866 


1867 


1868 


1869 


1870 


1871 




li 




* 


hush. 

24 

3314 


bus 

18 

22>^ 

22 

24% 


bush. 

11^ 


bus 

173s 
24% 
17 
20% 


bush. 
15% 

18% 
I414 

n% 


bus 

15 'e 
1814 

18% 
22% 


bus 

13% 
18 
16% 
18% 


bus 

16% 
23 'a 
19% 
25 

21% 


bushels. 

22% 
27.% 
24% 
30/2 


bush. 

17% 
23% 
203^ 
24%' 


bushels- 
20 

25% 
22% 

271/2 

23% 


10. 
20. 
30. 
4 0. 


28% 


21% 


20% 


19% 


16% 


18% 


16% 


26% 


21% 


Means 


3878- 
58'/, 
43% 
55M 


29% 
48?i 
33 m 
463^ 


271/I 

50><^ 

27/2 
47 


30% 

44 

33 

43% 


20% 
37%' 
25 
34% 


27J8 
48 
34% 
49^4 


27% 
41% 
30% 
38 


36% 
4538 
3838/ 
46% 


33?8' 
45%' 
35 
46% 


31% 
48% 
35 
46% 


32% 

47 

35 

4634 


1 A. 

2 A. 

3 A. 

4 A. 


491/8 


39><r 


38 1^ 


37Js^ 


29%/ 


39% 


3414 


41% 


4038 


40% 


40% 


Means 


41 M 
56% 

44^3' 
56% 


33% 

4714 
341^ 

48.% 


291^ 
50% 
2934 

50% 


29% 

44 '4 
32J« 
45 


27 
44 
27% 
45i'i^ 


32% 
48% 
33% 
49% 


29% '39% 
46% 46% 
32% 36% 
44% 46 


39% 
4878 
38^8 
49% 


34% 
49% 
361a 
49% 


37 

493^ 
37% 

49% 


1 AA. 

2 AA. 

3 AA. 

4 AA. 


49% 


411/8 
34% 

501/2 


40 '«^ 


38 


36 

29"^" 
44% 
36% 
46% 


41 

34% 
49% 
40% 
51% 


38%' 42 


4AM 


42% 


43% 


Means 


441/8 
54% 
50 
591^ 


37% :32% 
SPg' 44 
4178 39>; 
50% 45% 


35 


4S'^ 
49% 
48%: 
mi 


r37% 
Ui% 


36% 
47% 
42 

48% 


37 ] 
50 J 


1 AAS. 

2 AAS. 

3 AAS. 

4 AAS. 


52 


43?s^ 


45% 4014 


39% 


44% '42% 


48?4 


45% 


43% 


441/2 


Means 


4S% 
51% 
493^ 
53 


45 

46ig 
48% 

48}i 

47 


45% 38% 
471/3 45M 
43% 38% 

48% ,42% 

46>^ |41% 


37 
3514 
35% 
3614 


4214 '41% 
48 '4 41% 
43% 38/2 
52% 43% 


44 
41% 

45% 
47/2 


47 

47% 

44 

47% 


43?8/ 
45% 
43 'X 

4714 


45% 
46% 
43% 
47% 


1 C. 

2 C. 

3 C. 

4 C. 


50X 


35% 


46% 41% 


44% 

43"^ 
45% 

22% 
20 

4414 

18% 

2414 

54% 


46% 


45 


45% 


Means 


40% 
46,'i 

25% 
263^ 
50% 

251/8 
2514 

62 


37 

39% 

19% 
23 

48 'i 

21 
1914 

52% 


34% 
41 

19 

22% 
43% 

161-^ 

17% 

53% 


33 

36% 

20% 
19% 
34% 

16% 
19% 

45% 


25% 
25%' 

14% 

15 

363^ 

15% 
15% 

43% 


35% '34% 
38% 40% 

16'«' 16 'a' 

23% 14% 
4!).% 41% 

14% 15% 
15% 15% 

46% '47% 


43%' 

25 

23% 

45 


373^ 
40% 

20% 
21% 
44% 

18% 
20 

51% 


37%(,2^ 
41% P^ 

21%) (3) 
22%) (*) 

4438^ 

22 

21% 

48% 


1 N. 
2N. 

M. 

5 0. 
5 A- 

IV 

7 



(1853-61), last 10 years, and total 
of 9 years (1853-'61), last 10 years, 



19 years, 
and total 



(3) Averages of 7 years (1855-'61). 
19 years. 



234 



TALKS ON MANUEBS. 



Experiments on the Growth of Barley, tear after tear, on the 

Manure. Hoos 



TABLE ni.— WEIGHT PEB 



(N.B. The double vertical lines Bhow that there was a change in the description, 

2'able L, and foot notes. 





HARVESTS. 


^ 


1852; 


1853 


1854 


1855 


1856 


1857 


1858 


1859 


1860 


1861 1862 1863 


1 o. 

2 0. 

3 0. 

4 0. 


lbs. 
52.1 
52.6 
52.5 
51.5 


Iba. 
51.4 
52.6 
51.9 
52.1 


lbs. 
53.6 
54.0 
53.6 
54.0 


lbs. 
52.4 
52.5 
52.9 
53.1 


lbs. 
49.1 
46.5 
48.5 
47.0 


lbs. 
52.0 

52.8 
52.51 

53.7; 


lbs. 
53.0 
54.0 
53.5 
54.0 


lbs. 

40.0 
52.0 
40.5 
52.5 


lbs. 
50.8 
50.5 
50.3 
51.3 


lbs. 
52.3 
53.3 
52.8 
54.0 


lbs. 
50.3 
52.0 
51.8 
52.0 

51.5 


lbs. 
53.6 
54.2 
54.5 

54.8 

54.3 


Means 


52.2 


52.0 


53.8 


52.7 


47.8 


52.8 


5.3.6 50.8 50.7 


53.1 


1 A. 

2 A. 

3 A. 

4 A. 


50.7 

" 50.5 

50.9 

51.4 


52.4 
52.5 
52.6 
53.1 


53.6 
54 3 
54.0 
54.3 


51.8 
51.3 
52.2 
52.0 


48.5 
46.3 
49.1 
46.4 


51.9 
54.3 
52.1 
54.8 


53.0 

53.8 
54.0 
54.0 


47.5 
51.0 
47.5 
51.0 


50.8 
51.0 
50.8 
51.1 


51.5 
53.5 
.51.5 
54.0 


49.4 
53.5 
50.5 
54.0 


53.6 
55.3 
54.3 
56.5 


Means 


50.9 


52.7 


54.1 


51.8 


47.6 


53.3 53.7 


49.3 


50.9 


52.6 


51.9 


54.9 


1 AA. 

2 AA. 

3 AA. 

4 AA. 


49.1 

40.5 
50.6 
50.6 


51.3 

51.7 
51.3 
51.4 


52.8 
52.4 
53.1 
52.1 

52.6 


50.6 
50.1 
.50.2 
48.9 


48.3 
46.1 
47.3 
45.4 


52.0 
53.5 
52.1 
53.9 


53.5 
53.3 
53.9 
53.5 


47.5 
50.7 
47.5 
50.5 


50.7 
51.3 
50.4 
51.0 


51.8 
53.5 
51.5 
53.5 


50.0 
54.4 
51.5 
54.0 


53.9 
55.7 
54.5 
56.4 


Means 


50.0 


51.4 


50.0 


46.8 


52.9 1 53.0 


49.1 


50.9 


52.6 52.5 


55.1 


1 AAS. 

2 AAS. 

3 AAS. 

4 AAS. 


























Means 










53.2 
53.8 

54.1! 
54.1 i 






1 






1 C. 

2 C. 

3 C. 

4 C. 


51.7 
51.8 
51.3 
51.4 


51.3 
51.6 
51.5 
50.4 


52.9 
52.8 
52.6 
52.8 


50.5 
.50.0 
50.6 
49.5 


46.1 
47.3 
46.6 
46.3 


53.5 
52.8 
53.5 
53.1 


52.0 52.0 54.0 
51.5 51.5 54.1 
51.7 51.8 53.5 
51.0 51.1 54.3 


54.5 
55.3 
53.5 
54.0 


56.3 
56.4 
56.8 
56.7 

56.6 

53.4 
53.9 

53.8 
54.1 
55.6 

U4.O 
54.1 

57.2 


Means 


51.6 


51.2 


52.8 


50.2 


46.6 


53.8 


53.2 


51.6 


51.6 54.0j 54.3 


1 N. 
2N. 

M. 
5 0. 
5 A. 

7 


} (51.7) ■ 

(51.0) 1 
51.0 

52.0 
53.0 

52.8 


i.51.3 
i49.7 

51.8 
52.3 

50.3 
50.9 

51.6 


53.3 
53.1 

53.8 

52.8 
53.6 

53.9 


52.0; 50.0 
50.1,48.4 

52.6 40.3 
52.6147.5 
51.51 46.G 

52.5 50.0 

52.6 50.0 

52.9 47.1 


52.9 
53.01 

.52.6 
53.4 
54.5 

52.3 
52.3 

54.2 


53.5 
54.0 

53.6 
.54.0 
54.0 

53.1 

53.1 

64.5 


48.0 
48.5 

49.5 
51.0 
51.0 

48.5 

47.5 

52.5 


51.0 
51.1 

.•.l.C 
51.2 
1 
51.3 

r 

'52.1 


52.0 
51.8 

53.8 
53.3 
53.U 

1 
52.0 

52.0 

'54.8 


51.5 
M.3 

52.8 
51.5 
52.0 

51.8 

152.0 

'54.8 



Q) Averages of 4 years, 4 years, and 8 years, 
last 10 years, and 



(2) Averages of 9 years 
total 17 years. (*) Averages 



MANURE FOR BARLEY. 



235 



Si-MB Land, without Manure, and with different descriptions of 
Field, Rothamsted. 

BU3UEL OF DRESSED CORN— Ibs. 

or quantity, of Manure, at the period indicated, for particulars of which see 
thereto, p. 231.] 



HARVESTS. 


Average AnnuaIj. 




1864 


1865 1856 

lbs. lbs 
53.9 51.1 
53.8 53.2 
51.5 52.3 
54.0 52.7 


1867 

ibi 
51.8 
53.9 
52.9 
53.6 


1868 


1869 


1870 


1871 






1 ?»"-• 


1 


lbs. 
55.7 
56.8 
56.9 
57.3 


lbs. 
54.3 
55.8 
55.7 
55.3 


lbs. 
52.4 
54.3 
54.7 
54.6 


lbs. 
52.9 
53.6 
54.3 
55.6 


lbs. 
55.0 
56.0 
55.4 
55.6 


lbs. 

51.6 
52.C 
51.8 
52.3 


lbs. 
53.1 
54.4 
1 54.3 
54.6 


lbs. 
52.3 
53.2 
53.0 
53.4 


1 O. 

2 0. 

3 0. 

4 0. 


56.7 54.1 [52.3 


53.1 


55.3 


54.0 


54.1 


55.5 


52.0 


|m.. 


53.0 


Means 


55.4 53.8 50.9 
57.0 52.7 54.4 
56.4)54.7 52.1 
57.6 ^53.5 54.7 


51.3 
54.1 
51.9 
54.3 


53.3 
54.6 
54.8 
55.6 


52.4 
57.0 
54.6 
57.4 


54.6 
57.2 
55.4 
57.1 


55.6 
55.0 
56.1 
56.5 


51.2 
51.8 
51.5 
52.2 


1 53.0 

1 55.1 

54.1 

55.7 


52.1 
53.5 
52.8 
54.0 


1 A. 

2 A. 

3 A. 

4 A. 


56.6 [53.7 53 


52.9 


54.6 


55.4 

53.1 
57.2 
53.7 
57.1 


56.1 

54.5 
56.9 
54.6 
57.1 


55.8 


51.6 54.5 


53.1 


Means 


55.5:53.5 50.9 
57.2 52.3 55.0 
56.5 '54.8 51.4 
57.6 53.3; 55.4 


52.4 
54.1 
51.9 
54.6 


53.7 
55.6 
55.1 
56.0 


54.1 
55.9 
54.3 
56.3 


50.8 
51.2 
50.8 
51.1 


53.2 
55.4 
53.8 
55.8 


52.0 
53.3 
52.3 
53.4 


1 AA. 

2 AA. 

3 AA. 

4 AA. 


56.753.5 53.2 


53.3 


55.1 


55.3 


55.8 


55.2 


51.0 


54.6 


52.8 


Means 


56.1 154.2 151.8 
57.2 52.4:5.5.6 
57.2154.8 52.5 
57.0 53.1,55.3 


53.5 
55.1 
53.0 
54.1 


54 2 
56.2 
5.5.5 
56.2 


54.8 
57.4 
56.6 
57.8 


55.0 
57.4 
55.9 
57.8 


54.6 
55.6 
53.8 
55.4 


r53.9 

m J 55.1 

^^154.4 

54.9 


54.6 
56.7 
55.5 
56.8 


54.31 
55.8 


1 AAS. 

2 AAS. 

3 AAS. 

4 AAS. 


56 9 53.6 53.8 


53.9 


55.5 


5G.7 


56.5* 


54.9 


54.6 


55.9 


55.2 


Means 


57.1 53 8 55.1 
57.0 53.3 55.7 
57.3|53.3 55.3 
57.3 ;53.5 55.6 


54.4 
55.0 
54.7 
51.8 


56.2 
58.1 
55.8 
55.4 


56.7 
57.1 
57.1 
57.4 


57.5 
57.8 
57.6 
58.0 


56.3 
56.4 
56.3 
56.4 


51.7 
51.7 
51.7 
51.4 


55.8 
56.0 
55.8 
55.9 


53.8 
53.9 
53.7 
53.6 

53.8 
52.7 r> 


1 C. 

2 C. 

3 C. 

4 C. 


57.1 53.5 55.4 


54.7 

52.9 
52.7 


55.9 

52.8 
55.5 


57.1 


57.7 


56.4 


51.6 


55.9 

53.7 
54.2 


Means 


56.0 54.1 '52.0 
56.5 53.8 52.8 

1 1 


54.3 
54.8 


55.6 
55.8 


54.6 
54.6 


1 N. 
2N. 


56.3 54.4 
57.(; 54.5 
57.5 54.1 


52.9 
53.4 
54.8 


5.3.9 
51.0' 
55.2 


54.0 
5().4 
57.5 


54.0 
5.5.6 
57.5 


55.3 
55.9 
57.3 


55.0 

55.1 
55.5 


e) (51.8 

(4) (52.0 

51.9 


54.2 
54.8 
55.7 


53.2) (3) 
53.4; (4) 
53.8 


M. 
5 O. 

5 A. 


56.0 53.9 
55.8 53.9 

1 


51.3 
51.8 


52.0 
52.5 


53.5 
53.8 


52.8 
52.9 


54.0 
54.6 


55.4 
54.9 


51.5 
51.6 


53.5 . 

53.6 I 


52.5 
)2.6 


J}6 


67.4 54.4 


54.9 


54^ 


57.1 


56 4 


57.1 


56.6 


52.6 


^OJ 


)4.3 


7 



(1853-'61), last 10 years, and trtal 
of 9 years (1853-'61), last 10 years 



19 years, 
and total 19 



(3) Averages of 7 years (1855-'61), 
years. 



236 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



EXPBKIMENTS ON THB GROWTH OF BARLET, TeAB ATTER TeAR, ON THB 

Manure. Hoos 



TABLE IV. — OFFAL 



[N.B. The double vertical lines show that there was a change in the description, 

Table I., and foot-notes 





HARVESTS. 


i 


1852 


1853 


1854 


1855 


1856 


1857 


1858 


1859 


1860 


1861 1862 


1863 




lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. lbs. 


lbs. 


1. 0. 


164 


225 


84 


144 


131 


93 


86 


110 


78 


88 


64 


49 


2. 0. 


100 


101 


101 


69 


58 


106 


103 


159 


84 


78 


114 


58 


3. 0. 


183 


151 


64 


76 


129 


61 


96 


8l5 


78 


88 


73 


54 


4. 0. 


i;36 


160 


105 


94 


88 


53 


108 


160 


74 


58 i 117 


57 


Means 


146 


159 


89 


96 


102 


78 


93 


129 


78 


78 92 


55 

116 


1. A. 


218 


253 


201 


138 


219 


113 


98 


184 


150 


170 269 


2. A. 


260 


244 


150 


184 1 121 


88 


114 


274 


159 


130 • 191 


99 


3. A. 


252 


336 


197 


177 1 180 


91 


96 


175 


115 


109 269 


108 


4. A. 


273 


274 


138 


142 125 


70 


117 


253 


150 


110 150 


81 


Means 


251 


277 


172 


160 j 161 


91 


106 


222 


143 


ISO 220 


101 


1. AA. 


299 


303 


326 


201 i 310 


135 


88 


215 


109 


173 296 110 


2. AA. 


315 


251 


329 


181 233 


133 


134 


320 


118 


190 


133 143 


3. A A. 


318 


236 


3:M 


212 2!)0 


103 


118 


2(;5 


122 


138 


364! 95 


4. AA. 


246 


SOI 


273 


150 176 


183 


143 


285 


141 


179 


191 


66 
703 


Means 


294 


273 


316 


187 252 


140 


121 


271 


123 


170 


246 


1 AAS. 


























2 AAS. 


























3 AAS 


























4 AAS. 



























Means 






1 
















1 C 


170 


268 


178 


219 


173 


135 


103 


225 


120 


154 


154 


85 


2 C. 


IGl 


316 


2as 


195 


161 


169 


148 


171 


156 


150 


128 


109 


3 C, 


ISO 


296 


248 


183 


189 


156 1 


105 


236 


115 


204 


190 


71 


4C. 


144 


277 


227 


222 


205 


168 1 


125 


350 


153 


204 


174 


66 
83 


Means 


1G7 


S04 


223 


205 


182 


157 


120 


246 


136 178 


161 


1 N 


} (94) -{ 


233 


109 


12R 


245 


99 


119 


205 


146 225 


245 


120 


2N. 


223 


286 


224 


193 


151 1 


no 235 


179 


190 


216 


114 


M 






1 


36 


94 


90 


84 


85 


75 


78 


198 


46 


5 0. 


(173) 1 


68 


113 


£0 


96 


101 


71 


110 


73 


73 


193 


41 


5 A. 


173 


210 


170 


125 


151 


68 


154 


168 


193 


188 


210 


81 


^\l 


120 


200 


144 


116 


1.52 


72 


84 


121 


88 


73 


75 


51 


118 


161 


119 


73 125 


105 


81 


127 


95 


67 


li)4 


65 


7 


101 


260 


66 


109 141 


134_ 


121 


260 147' 190 


208 


66 



(}) Averaeres of 4 years, 4 years, and 8 years. (-) Averages o' 9 years 

last 10 years, and total 17 years. (*) Averages 



MANURE FOR BARLEY. 



237 



SAME Land, without Manure, and with different descriptions op 
Field, Rothamsted. 

CORN PER acre— lbs, 

or quantity, of Manure, at the period indicated, for particulars of which, Bee 
thereto, p. 231.] 



Harvests. 


Average Annuai-. 
















1 


ssS 




1 - 


1 


1864 


1865 


1866 


1867 


1868 


1869 


1870 1871 


It 


Is 






lbs. 


lbs 


lbs. 


Iha. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. lbs. 


lbs. 


Ibs. 


lbs. 




42 


41 


41 


90 


21 


44 


31 ' 48 


120 


48 


84 


1 0. 


69 


38 


21 


53 


2i) 


8i) 


18 S3 


96 


52 


74 


2 O. 


43 


38 


3S 


64 


27 


70 


18 35 


101 


46 


74 


3 0. 


41 


28 


55 


CO 


25 


69 


26 48 


104 


53 


78 


4 0. 


49 


38 


39 


67 


25 


68 


23 i 41 


105 


50 


78 


Means 


99 


58 


94 


115 


40 


130 


23 105 


174 


107 


141 


1 A. 


C3 


8+ 


64 


76 


38 


113 


26 ISO 


172 


94 


133 


2 A. 


83 


51 


106 


94 


34 


95 


24 i 89 


173 


95 


134 


3 A. 


110 


CO 


63 


71 


50 


21 


27 ,146 


1G5 


78 


122 


4 A. 


89 


63 


82 


89 


43 


92 


25 jl32 


171 


94 


133 


Means 


110 


64 


148 


110 


46 ! 64 


33 133 


216 


111 


164 


1 AA. 


60 


113 


111 


(il) 


46 . 89 


24 168 


220 


95 


158 


2 AA. 


76 


48 


103 il06 


59 111 


36 '133 


214 


113 


164 


3 AA. 


46 


76 


133 jll'J 


43 , 78 


30 90 


208 


87 


148 


4 AA. 


71 


75 


124 101 ^^8 86 


31 131 


215 


102 


159 


Means 




94 


55 


88 


85 


40 121 


33 ! 94 


r 81 


74 


771 


1 AAS. 




53 


86 


96 


66 


C4 1 60 


23 


155 


(■) 1 


75 


85f(> 


2 AAS. 




70 


50 


141 


79 


S9 130 


20 


ir,o 


84 


3 AAS. 




93 


70 


80 


93 


46 125 


26 


175 


184 


93 


89 J 


4 AAS. 


77 


05 


101 


81 


50 111 


28 


1S8 


1 « 


82 


82 


Means 


78 


83 


104 109 


43 C9 


25 


-58 


175 


83 


129 


1 C. 


92 


44 


89 


89 


61 111 


24 


88 


193 


84 


138 


2 C. 


90 


66 


94 


91 


39 91 


37 


141 


192 


91 


142 


3 C. 


123 


69 


128 


72 


42 ! 67 


28 


124 


203 


89 


149 


4 C. 


96 


66 


104 


90 


47 i 85 


28 


108 


192 


87 


139 


Means 


74 


98 


124 


119 


61 150 


33 


90 


oils 


112 


141 i /2^ 

149 r> 


IN. 


95 


84 


104 


88 


35 


98 


33 


171 


104 


2N. 


58 


60 


44 


56 


26 


61 


25 


58 


'(3) (77 


64 


60) (3) 


M. 


78 


35 


48 


56 


20 


75 


2;^ 


41 


(4) (84 


61 


72) (*) 


5 O. 


91 


94 


53 


74 


33 


63 


30 


144 


160 


87 


124 


5 A. 


51 


45 


72 


103 


27 


71 


26 


50 


117 


57 


87 


l\' 


64 


47 


51 83 


21 


1 ^'^ 


23 


41 


107 


64 


85 




117 


56 


148 


111 


48 


100 


26 


171 


156 


105 


130 


i 7 



(1853-61"), last 10 years, and total 19 years. (3) Averages of 7 years (185.5-Y,1), 
of 9 years (1853-''61), last 10 years, and total 19 years. 



238 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



EXPBBIMBNTS ON THE GBOWTH OF BARLET, YbAB AFTER TeAR, ON THE 

Manure. Hogs 



TABLE v.— 8TBAW 



N.B. The double vertical lines show that there was a change in the descrip- 

Table 1., and foot-notes 











Harvests. 


^ 


1852 


1853 


1854 


1855 


1856 


1857 


1858 


1859 


1860 


1861 


1862 


1863 


1 0. 

2 O. 

3 0. 

4 0. 


Cwts. 
16% 
16)^ 
163ir 
193^ 


cwts. 
18 

2014 


cwts. 

21% 

mi 
20% 

23% 


cwt 

17% 

n% 

18 


cwt 

8% 

9% 


cwts. 

12% 

15^8 

15 

17% 


cwts. cwt 
10 's 1 !>%■ 
14% 12% 
12% i 93. 
16% 12% 


cwt cwt 'cwt cwt 
73^11 ! 9% 11% 
8% 1133^12% 15% 
8/2!ll3<ri0%13% 
9%!15% 13/2^15% 


Means 


17^4 


183i 


22%- 


17% 


9 


15% 


13/2 10% 


8% 12% 11>^ 133^ 


1 A. 

2 A. 

3 A. 

4 A. 


If 
23% 

27% 


23% 

253^ 
25% 
26% 


mi 

40% 
33% 
40X 


24% '17% 
29% 213^ 
27^ 17% 
31 21'^ 


17% 
26% 
21% 
27% 


153^ 'llX 
28% 24% 
17% 'V.^M 
29% 27 '4 


14% '19% 20% '21% 
25% 29% 32% 34 
16% 213^ 23% 261^ 
26% 3OK2 31% 32 


Means 


25% 


2514 


36% 


28 ;i93^ 


233^ 


22% jl9% 


20% 25% 26% 28% 


1 AA. 

2 AA. 

3 AA. 

4 AA. 


26% 
28% 
26% 

28% 


26% 

28% 
2714 
31% 


37% 
44% 
37% 
49 


32% 
38% 
34 
39% 


24j^ 
31% 
263i 
33 


231/2 
32% 
26 
36% 


19% 
32%- 
22'^ 
35% 


143^ 
26 s 
16% 
30% 


13/222 21% 25% 

24% 31% 31/2323^ 
18% 24% 24%, 27% 
29 j33% 33% 34% 


Means 


27.^ 


28% 


42% 


36% 


28% 


29% 


273^ 


21% 


21% 27% 27% 30 


1 AAS. 

2 AAS. 

3 AAS. 

4 AAS. 
























Means 


1 






















1 C. 

2 C. 

3 C. 

4 C. 


24% 
23^^ 
21% 
24% 


26% 

25% 

27;^ 


4314 
4414 
41% 
42% 


36% 
36% 
35J8 
37% 


26 

31x% 
26,% 
303^ 


33% 
33-,' 
30% 

33% 


30% 26% 

33% 28% 
30% 25% 
35 29>< 


17% 
20% 
201^ 
22% 


27% 
303^ 
30% 
31 


26 

273^ 
23% 
28% 


28% 
30% 
29% 

mi 


Means 


23/2 


26'^ 


42% 


36,% 


28?/8 


32% 


32% ,27% 20% 


30 


263^ 


29% 


1 N. 

2N. 

M. 
5 0. 

5 A. 

MJ 

7 


(25%) 1 
25% 

14% 
18>^ 


23%- 
25% 

1534 
24 

16>^ 
15% 

22% 


35 5i 

22% 
20X 

S7% 


27 
33% 

15% 
14% 
31 

18% 
16% 

273^ 


19% 
28^ 

10% 

10% 
22% 

9% 
93J 

19% 


24% 
32 1 

10% 
13% 

27fi 

16% 

14% 

23% 


203b- !i8% 
23% 21% 

12% 10,% 
12% lOX 
28% 26% 

12 11% 
11% jlO 

31% 28,% 


16% 27% 
18% 29% 

7% 15% 

%li 17X 

25>^ 31% 

73^ 9% 
7M10 

25% 31% 


243:^ 

24% 

14/2 
lOX 
31% 

10% 
11% 

343^ 


30 k 
29% 

19>^ 
153^ 
3-1 

13 H 
14% 

33% 



(}) Averaj^es of 4 years, 4 years, and 8 years, 
last 10 years, and 



total 



(2) Averages of years 
17 years. (*) Averages 



MANUEE FOE BAELET. 



239 



SAME Land, without Manure, and with different descriptions of 

Field, Rothamsted. 

(and chaff) per acre— cwts. 

tion, or quantity, of Manure, at the period indicated, for particulars of which see 

thereto, p. 231.] 



Harvests. 


Average Annual. 




1864 


1865 


1866 


1867 


1868 


1869 

cwt 
11 

10% 
11 

12J^ 


1870 


1871 


ii. 






^ 


cwts. 

12X 
15?^ 
135^ 
16?^ 


cwt 

8% 
9% 

10 


cwts 

9^2 

12% 
10 3i 

12% 


cwt 
103^ 

123:i 

10% 
12 


cwts. 

11% 

9% 
8% 
10% 


cwt 

6% 
8 

8% 
9% 


cwt 
11 

12K 


cwts. 
13% 
14% 
13% 
16% 


cwts. 
101^ 

11% 

10% 

12% 


cwts. 

11% 

13% 
1214 
14% 


1 0. 

2 0. 

3 0. 

4 0. 


U'/s 


9M 


UK 


11% 


9% 


11% 


e% 


12% 


14% 


11% 


12% 


Means 


20% 
32)^ 
193^ 
34% 


13 

21 ?s^ 

16 

22X 


15% 

28% 
16% 
27% 


28% 
19% 

25% 


121^ 
19% 

14% 
^0% 


18% 

32 

20% 

34% 


12% 
17% 
15 
18%' 


23% 
28% 
25% 
321/2 

271^ 

263^ 
32 13' 

25% 
32,^8 


19% 

27% 
21% 
28% 


17% ' 
271/2 
19% 
28 


18 14 
27% 
20% 
28% 


1 A. 

2 A. 

3 A. 

4 A. 


26 3^ 


18K 


21% 


22% 


16% 


26% 

21% 
34% 
22% 
38% 


16 

17% 
2334 
20% 

18% 


^H 


23% 


23% 


Means 


233^ 
33^8 
26% 
37X 


16 
23 

17 

24% 


17% 
28% 

18^8 

28>4^ 


17% 
30% 

20 ?4 
283« 


14<4 
21% 
16^ 
25% 


24 

31% 

25% 

34% 


20% 
29% 
22H 
30% 


22% 
30/2 
24 

32% 


1 AA. 

2 AA. 

3 AA. 

4 AA. 


30% 


203€ 


23)i 


2414 


19% 


29% 


20% 


2914 

2934 
36% 
31% 
38 


29 


25% 


2714 


Means 


26% 
33^4 

30,3^ 
40M 


22% 
23^4 
20?^ 

25V, 


20% 
303^ 
25 
291/, 

l6>7 


18% 
29/2 
23% 
28I4 

24% 


16% 
25% 
22 
26% 


23% 
37% 
30% 

42/2 


17 
203^ 
20% 
20% 


r2i% 

(nj29% 

i^M24% 

131 


217^ 
29% 
26% 
32 


21%] 
31% J 


1 AAS. 

2 AAS. 

3 AAS. 

4 AAS. 


325^ 22% 


22% 


33% 


19% 


33% 

2714 
2VA 
30% 
32 


26% 


27% 


27 


Means 


26% 2l}4 
31% 21% 
31 22 
34% ^22 


24% 
241/j 

m 


25% 
25% 

22% 
243^ 


19% 
19% 
lOM 
21% 


27 

3318^ 
30% 
35% 


IIU 
17% 
18% 
20% 


29% 
S0% 
28% 
3114 


2414 
26 
25 ',i 
27% 


26% 
28% 
27% 
29% 


1 C. 

2 C. 

3 C. 
4C. 


31 J21% 


25% 


24% 


19% 31% 


I81/2 29% 


30% 1 2534 


28 


Means 


24 V^ 
27 3£ 

13% 
14% 
33% 

13% 
13% 

37% 


184 

213^ 

i 9% 
10?i 

24% 

SJi 
25% 


21% 

23% 

12% 
10% 
28 

10 '2' 
91/2 

31% 


21% 
21% 

12 
10% 

22% 

9% 
10% 

27% 


18% 24 

17% 27% 

10%^ !ll% 

8/2 15/2 

20% 363^ 

10% 9% 
10% 10% 

24% 28% 


13% 2914 
19% 311/2 

8% '14% 

4% 13 'a 

21% 29% 

73413 
7% 13% 

19% 371/8 


^2^J23% 
^M27% 

(3) (11% 

14 
13 

26% 


221/2 

241/2 

1234 

11% 
28 '4 

103^ 

1134 

29'^ 


11 ^« 

12%) (3) 
12%) {') 
28 

12% 
12% 

2814 


IN. 
2N. 

M. 
5 0. 
5 A. 

Ih 

7 



(1853-61), last 10 
of 9 years (1853-' 



years, and total 19 years. 
61), last 10 years, and total 



(3) Averages of 7 years (1855-'61), 
19 years. 



240 TAI.KS ox MANURES. 

The produce of barley the first season (1852), was, per acre : 

On the unmanured plot 27t bushels 

With superphosphate of hme 281 " 

" potash, soda, and magnesia 26f " 

" '* " " and superphosphate 32* " 

" 14 tons barn-yard manure S3 " 

*' 200 lbs. ammonia-salts alone 36f " 

" " " and superphosphate 381 " 

" " " and potash, soda, and magnesia 36 " 
" " " and superphosphate, potash, 

soda, and magnesia 401 " 

" 400 lbs. ammonia-salts alone 44^ « 

The 200 lbs. of ammonia-salts contain 50 lbs. of ammonia=41 
lbs. nitrogen. 

It will be seen that this 50 lbs. of ammonia alone, on plot l<x, 
gives an increase of nearly 10 bushels per acre, or to be more accu- 
rate, it gives an increase over the unmanured plot of 503 lbs. of 
grain, and 329 lbs. of straw , while double the quantity of ammonia 
on plot la.a., gives an increase of 17^ bushels per acre — or an in- 
crease of 901 lbs. of grain, and 1,144 lbs. of straw. 

" Put that fact in separate lines, side by side," said the Deacon, 
** so that we can see it." 

Total 
Orain Straw Produce. 

50 lbs. of ammonia gives an increase of 503 lbs. 704 lbs. 1207 lbs. 

100 " " '' " " " " .... 901 '* 1144 " 2045 " 
The first 50 lbs. of ammonia gives an in- 
crease of 503 " 704 " 1207 " 

The second 50 lbs. of ammonia gives an in- 
crease of 398 " 540 " 738 " 

" That shows," said the Deacon, " that a dressing of 50 lbs. per 
acre pays better than a dressing of 100 lbs. per acre. I wish Mr. 
Lawes had sown 75 lbs. on one plot." 

I wish so, too, but it is quite probable that in our climate, 50 
lbs. of available ammonia per acre is all that it will usually be 
profitable to apply per acre to the barley crop. It is equal to a 
dressing of 500 lbs. guaranteed Peruvian guano, or 275 lbs. nitrate 
of soda. — " Or to how much manure ? " asked the Deacon. 

To about 5 tons of average stable-manure, or say three tons of 
good, well-rotted manure from grain-fed animals. 

" And yet," said the Deacon, " Mr. Lawes put on 14 tons of yard 
manure per acre, and the yield of barley was not as much as from 
the 50 lbs. of ammonia alone. How do you account for that?" 

Simply because the ammonia in the manure is not ammonia. It 
is what the chemists used to call " potential ammonia." A good 
deal of it is in the form of undigested straw and hay. The nitro- 
genous matter of the food which has been digested by the animal 



MANURE FOR BARLEY. 241 

and thrown off in the liquid excrements, is in such a form that it 
will readily ferment and produce ammonia, while the nitrogenous 
matter in the undigested food and in the straw used for bedding, 
decomposes slowly even under the most favorable conditions ; and 
if buried while fresh in a clay soil, it probably would not all de- 
compose in many years. But we will not discuss this at present. 

" The superphosphate does not seem to have done much good," 
said the Deacon ; " 3^ cwt. per acre gives an increase of less than 
two bushels per acre. And I suppose it was good superphosphate." 

There need be no doubt on that point. Better superphosphate 
of lime cannot be made. But you must recollect that this is pure 
superphosphate made from burnt bones. It contains no ammonia 
or organic matter. Commercial superphosphates contain more or 
less ammonia, and had they been used in these experiments, they 
would have shown a better result than the pure article. They 
would have done good in proportion to the available nitrogen they 
contained. If these experiments prove anything, they clearly indi- 
cate that superphosphate alone is a very poor manure for either 
wheat or barley. 

The second year, the unmanurcd plot gave 25| bushels per acre. 
Potash, soda, and magnesia, (or what the Deacon calls "ashes,") 
27f bushels; superphosphate 33i, and "ashes" and superphos- 
phate, nearly 36 bushels per acre. 

50 lbs. of ammonia, alone, gives nearly 39 bushels, and ammonia 
and superphosphate together, 40 bushels. 

The superphosphate and " ashes " give a better account of them- 
selves this year ; but it is remarkable that the ammonia alone, gives 
almost as good a crop as the ammonia and superphosphate, and a 
better crop than the ammonia and " ashes," or the ammonia, super- 
phosphate, and ashes, together. 

The 14 tons farm-yard manure gives over 36 bushels per acre. 
This plot has now had 28 tons of manure per acre, yet the 50 lbs. 
of ammonia alone, still gives a better yield than this heavy dress- 
ing of manure. 

The third season (1854), was quite favorable for the ripening of 
•wheat and barley. The seed on the experimental barley-field, was 
sown Feb. 24, and the harvest was late ; so that the crop had an 
unusually long season for growth. It was one of the years when 
even poor land, if clean, gives a good crop. The unmanured plot, 
it will be seen, yielded over 35 bushels per acre of dressed grain, 
weighing over 53^ lbs. per bushel. The total weight of grain, was 
1,963 lbs. This is over 40 bushels per acre, of 48 lbs. per bushel, 
which is the standard with us. 
11 



242 TALKS ON MANURES. 

The 14 tons of farm-yard manure produce nearly 56^ bushels 
per acre. 

50 lbs. of ammonia, on plot la... 47^ bushels per acre. 

100 " " " *' " l«a 561 " " 

You will see, that though the plot which has received 42 tons of 

manure per acre, produced a splendid crop ; the plot having nothing 

except 100 lbs. of ammonia per acre, produced a crop equally good. 

"How much increase do you get from 50 lbs. of ammonia," 

asked the Deacon, " and how much from 100 lbs. ? " 

EqvM Amer. 
Grain. JStraw. JBushels. 
50 lbs of ammonia, gives an increase of 800 lbs. 953 lbs. 161 bush. 
100 '' " '* ' " " " " 1,350 '' 3,100 " 38 " 

If you buy nitrate of soda at 3f cents a lb., the ammonia will 
cost 20 cents a lb. In the above experiment, 50 lbs. of ammonia, 
costing $10, gives an increase of 16f bushels of barley, and nearly 
half a ton of straw. If the straw is worth $4.00 per ton, the barley 
will cost 48 cents a bushel. 

Double the quantity of manure, costing $30, gives an increase of 
28 bushels of barley, and over one ton of straw. In this case the 
extra barley costs 57 cents a bushel. 

On plot 2a., 50 lbs. of ammonia and 3^ cwt. of superphosphate, 
give 3,437 lbs. of grain, equal to 71i of our bushels per acre. 

On plot 2a.a. 100 lbs. of ammonia and 3i cwt. of superphosphate, 
give 3,643 lbs. of grain, which lacks only 5 lbs. of 76 bushels per 
acre, and nearly 2^ tons of straw. 

" That will do," said the Dea-.on, " but I see that in 1857, this 
same plot, with the same manure, produced 66^ bushels of dressed 
grain per acre, weighing 53| lbs. to the bushel, or a total weight of 
3,696 lbs., equal to just 77 of our bushels per acre." 

" And yet," said the Doctor, " this same year, the plot which 
had 84 tons of farm-yard manure per acre, produced only 2,915 
lbs. of grain, or less than 61 of our bushels of barley per acre." 

The Squire happened in at this time, and heard the last remark. 
" What are you saying," he remarked, " about only 61 bushels of 
barley per acre. I should like to see such a crop. Last year, in 
this neighborhood, there were hundreds of acres of barley that did 
not yield 20 bushels per acre, and very little of it would weigh 44 
lbs. to the bushel." 

This is true. And the maltsters find it almost impossible to get 
six-rowed barley weighing 48 lbs. per bushel. They told me, that 
they would pay $1.10 per bushel for good bright barley weighing 
48 lbs. per bushel, and for each pound it weighed less than this, 
they deducted 10 cents a bushel from the price. In other words, 



MANURE FOR BARLEY. 243 

they would pay $1.00 a bushel for barley weighing 47 lbs. to the 
bushel ; 90 cents for barley weighing 46 lbs ; 80 cents for barley 
weighing 45 lbs., and 70 cents for barley weighing 44 lbs.— and at 
these figures they much preferred the heaviest barley. 

It is certainly well worth our while, if we raise barley at all, to 
see if we cannot manage not only to raise larger crops per acre, but 
to produce barley of better quality. And these wonderful experi- 
ments of Mr. Lawes are well wprth careful examination and study. 

The Squire put on his spectacles and looked at the tables of 
figures. 

*'Like everybody else," said he, "you pick out the big figures, 
and to hear you talk, one would think you scientific gentlemen 
never have any poor crops, and yet I see that in 1860, there are 
three different crops of only 12^, 12i, and 13i bushels per acre." 

" Those," said I, " are the three plots which have grown barley 
every year without any manure, and you have selected the worst 
year of the whole twenty." 

"Perhaps so," said the Squire, " but we have got to take the 
bad with the good, and I have often heard you say that a 
good farmer who has his land rich and clean makes more 
money in an unfavorable than in a favorable season. Now, this 
year 1860, seems to have been an unfavorable one, and yet your 
pet manure, superphosphate, only gives an increase of 148 lbs. of 
barley— or three bushels and 4 lbs. Yet this plot has had a tre- 
mendous dressing of 3i cwt. of superphosphate yearly since 1853. 
I always told you you lost money in buying superphosphate." 

" That depends on what you do with it. I use it for turnips, and 
tomatoes, cabbages, lettuce, melons, cucumbers, etc., and would 
not like to be without it; but I have never recommended any one 
to use it on wheat, barley, oats, Indian corn, or potatoes, except as 
an experiment. What I have recommended you to get for barley 
is, nitrate of soda, and superphosphate, or Peruvian guano. And 
you will see that even in this decidedly unfavorable season, the 
plot 2a.a., dressed with superphosphate and 275 lbs. of nitrate of 
soda, produced 2,338 lbs. of barley, or 48| bushels per acre. This 
is an increase over the unmanured plots of 33i bushels per acre, 
and an increase of 1,872 lbs. of straw. And the plot dressed with 
superphosphate and 200 lbs. of salts of ammonia, gave equally as 
good results." 

And this, mark you, is the year which the Squire selected as the 
one most likely to show that artificial manures did not pay. 

" I never knew a man except you," said the Squire," who wanted 
unfavorable seasons." 



244 TALKS ON MANURES. 

I have never said I wanted unfavorable seasons. I should not 
dare to say so, or even to cherish the wish for one moment. But 
I do say, that when we have a season so favorable that even poorly- 
worked land will produce a fair crop, we are almost certain to have 
prices below the average cost of production. But when we have 
an unfavorable season, such crops as barley, potatoes, and beans, 
often advance to extravagantly high prices, and the farmer who has 
good crops in such a season, gets something like adequate pay for 
his patient waiting, and for his efforts to improve his land. 

" That sounds all very well," said the Squke," but will it pay to 
use these artificial manures ? " 

I do not wish to wander too much from the point, but would 
like to remark before I answer that question, that I am not a 
special advocate of artificial manures. I think we can often make 
manures on our farms far cheaper than we can buy them. But as 
the Squire has asked the question, and as he has selected from Mr. 
Lawes' results, the year 1860, I will meet him on his own ground. 
He has selected a season specially unfavorable for the growth of 
barley. Now, in such an unfavorable year in this country, barley 
would be likely to bring, at least, $1.25 per bushel, and in a favor- 
able season not over 75 cents a bushel. 

Mr. Lawes keeps his land clean^ which is more than can be said 
of many barley-growers. And in this unfavorable season of 1860, 
he gets on his three unmanured plots an average of 730 lbs. of 
barley, equal to 15i bushels per acre, and not quite 800 lbs. of 
straw. 

Many of our farmers frequently do no better than this. And 
you must recollect that in such careful experiments as those of 
Mr. Lawes and Dr. Gilbert, great pains would be taken to get all 
the barley that grew on the land. With us, barley is cut with a 
reaper, and admirable as our machines are, it is not an easy matter 
to cut a light, spindling crop of barley perfectly clean. Then, in 
pitching the crop and drawing it in, more or less barley is scattered, 
and even after we have been over the field two or three times with 
a steel-tooth rake, there is still considerable barley left on the 
ground. I think we may safely assume that at least as much barley 
is left on the ground as we usually sow — say two bushels per acre. 
And so, instead of having 15^ bushels per acre, as Mr. Lawes had, 
we should only harvest 134 bushels. 

Of all our ordinary farm crops, barley is attended with the least 
labor and expense. We usually sow it after corn or potatoes. On 
such strong land as that of Mr. Lawes, we ought to plow the land 



MANURE FOR BARLEY. 245 

in the autumn and again in the spring, or at least stir up the land 
thoroughly with a two or three-horse cultivator or gang-plow. 

Let us say that the cost of plowing, harrowing, drilling, and 
rolling, is $5.00 per acre. Seed, $2.00. Harvestmg, $2.00. Thresh- 
ing, 6 cents a bushel. 

Receipts : 

13i bushels barley @ 1.25 $16.57 

800 lbs. of straw @ $4. per ton 1.60 

18.17 
Putting in and harvesting the crop $9.00 

Threshing 13i bushels (a) 6 c 8 0— 9.80 

Kent and profit per acre $ 8.37 

**That is a better showing than I expected," said the Squire, 
" and as barley occupies the land only a few months, and as we 
sow wheat after it, we cannot expect large profits." 

" Very well," said I, " Now let us take the crop, this same un- 
favorable year, on plot 2a.«., dressed with superphosphate and 
nitrate of soda. 

The expense of plowing, harrowing, drilling, rolling, seed, and 
harvesting, would be about the same, or we will say $2.00 an acre 
more for extra labor in harvesting. And we will allow two bushels 
per acre for scatterings — though there is nothing like as much 
barley left on the ground when we have a good crop, as when we 
have a poor crop. But I want to be liberal. 

The yield on plot 2a.a., was 48f bushels per acre, and 2,715 lbs. 
of straw. 

Receipts : 

46f bushels® $1.25 $58.43 

2,715 lbs, straw @ $4. per ton 5.43 

$63.86 
Putting in the crop and harvesting. . . $11.00 

Threshing 4G* bushels @ 6 c 2.80 

275 lbs. nitrate of soda @ 4 c 11.00 

392 lbs. superphosphate @ 2 c 7.84 

$32.64 
Rent and profit $31.22 

In ordinary farm practice, I feel sure we can do better than this. 
Growing barley year after year on the same land, is not the most 
economical way of getting the full value of the manure. There is 
much nitrogen and phosphoric acid left in the land, which barley 
or even wheat does not seem capable of taking up, but which would 
probably be of great benefit to the clover. 



246 TALKS ON MANURES. 



MANURE AND ROTATION OF CROPS. 

The old notion that there is sm.j real chemical necessity for a 
rotation of crops is unfounded. Wheat can be grown after wheat, 
and barley after barley, and corn after corn, provided we use the 
necessary manures and get the soil clean and in the right mechani- 
cal condition. 

" What, then, do we gain by a rotation ? " asked the Deacon. 

Much every way. A good rotation enables us to clean the land. 
We can put in different crops at different seasons. 

" So we could," broke in the Deacon, " if we sowed wheat after 
wheat, barley after barley, and corn after corn." 

True, but if we sowed winter-wheat after winter-wheat, there 
would not be time enough to clean the land. 

" Just as much as when we sow wheat after oats, or peas, or 
barley." 

"True again, Deacon," I replied, "but we are supposed to have 
cleaned the land while it was in corn the previous year. I say sup- 
posed, because in point of fact, many of our farmers do not half 
clean their land while it is in corn. It is the weak spot in our 
agriculture. If our land was as clean as it should be to start with, 
there is no rotation so convenient in this section, as corn the first 
year, barley, peas, or oats the second year, followed by winter- 
wheat seeded down. But to carry out this rotation to the best ad- 
vantage we need artificial manures." 

" But will they pay ? " asks the Deacon. 

" They will pay well, provided we can get them at a fair price 
and get fair prices for our produce. If we could get a good su- 
perphosphate made from Charleston phosphates for li cent per lb., 
and nitrate of soda for ol or 4 cents per lb., and the German pot- 
ash-salts for f cent per lb., and could get on the average $1.25 per 
bushel for barley, and $1.75 for good white wheat, we could use 
these manures to great advantage." 

" Nothing like barn-yard manure," says the Deacon. 

No doubt on that point, provided it is good manure. Barn-yard 
manure, whether rich or poor, contains all the elements of plant- 
food, but there is a great difference between rich and poor manure. 
The rich manure contains twice or three times as much nitrogen 
and phosphoric acid as ordinary or poor manure. And this is the 
reason why artificial manures are valuable in proportion to the 
nitrogen and phosphori^cid that they contain in an available con- 
dition. When we use two or three hundred pounds per acre of a 
good artificial manure we in effect, directly or indirectly, convert 



MANURE FOE BARLEY. 247 

poor manure into rich manure. There is manure in our soil, but 
it is poor. There is manure in our barn-yard, but it is 
poor also. Nitrogen and phosphoric acid will make these 
manures rich. This is the reason why a few pounds of a good 
artificial manure will produce as great an effect as tons of common 
manure. Depend upon it, the coming farmer will avail himself of 
the discoveries of science, and will use more artificial fertilizers. 

But whether we use artificial fertilizers or farm-yard manure, we 
shall not get the full effect of the manures unless we adopt a 
judicious rotation of crops. 

When we sow wheat after wheat, or barley after barley, or oats 
after oats, we certainly do not get the full effect of the manures 
used. Mr. Lawes' experiments aflford conclusive evidence on this 
point. You will recollect that in 1846, one of the plots of wheat 
(106), which had received a liberal dressing of salts of ammonia 
the year previous, was left without manure, and the yield of wheat 
on this plot was no greater than on the plot which was continu- 
ously unmanured. In other words, the ammonia wliich was left in 
the soil from the previous year, had no effect on the wheat. 

The following table shows the amount of nitrogen furnished by 
the manure, and the amount recovered in the crop, when wheat is 
grown after wheat for a series of years, and also when barley is 
grown after barley, and oats after oats. 



248 



TALKS ON MANURES. 






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MANURE FOR BARLEY. 249 

It is not necessary to make any comments on this table. It 
speaks for itself; but it does not tell half the story. For instance, 
in the case of wheat and barley, it gives the average result for 20 
years. It shows that when 100 lbs. of nitrogen in a soluble and 
available form, are applied to wheat, about 68 lbs. are left in the 
soil. But you must recollect that 100 lbs. was applied again the 
next year, and no account is taken of the 68 lbs. left in the soil — 
and so on for 20 years. In other words, on plot 8, for instance, 
2,460 lbs. of nitrogen have been applied, and only 775 lbs. have 
been recovered in the total produce of grain, straw, and chaflf, 
and 1,685 lbs. have been left in the soil. 

Mr. Lawes estimates, from several analyses, that his farm-yard 
manure contains 0.637 per cent of nitrogen, 2.76 per cent of mineral 
matter, and 27.24 per cent of organic matter, and 70 per cent of 
water. 

According to this, the plot dressed with 14 tons of manure every 
year, for 20 years, has received 3,995 lbs. of nitrogen, of which 583i 
lbs. were recovered in the produce, and 3,411f lbs. were left in the 
soil. 

In the case of barley, 3,995 lbs. of nitrogen was applied dur- 
ing the 20 years to the plot dressed with farm-yard manure, of 
which 427i lbs. were recovered in the crop, and 3,567^ lbs. left in 
the soil. 

" I see," said the Deacon, " that barley gets less of the goodness 
out of farm-yard manure than wheat, but that it gets more out of 
the salts of ammonia and nitrate of soda. How do you account 
for that ? " 

" I suppose, because the manure for wheat was applied in the 
autumn, and the rains of winter and spring dissolved more of the 
plant-food than would be the case if the manure was applied in 
the spring. If the manure had been applied on the surface, in- 
stead of plowing it under, I believe the elfect would have been 
Btill more in favor of the autumn-manuring." 

When the nitrogen is in an available condition, spring barley 
can take up and utilize a larger proportion of the nitrogen than 
winter wheat. Neither the wheat nor the barley can get at and 
take up half what is applied, and this, notwithstanding the fact 
that a heavy dew or a slight rain furnishes water enough on an 
acre to dissolve a liberal dressing of nitrate of soda or sulphate 
and muriate of ammonia. The truth is, the soil is very conserva- 
tive. It does not, fortunately for us, yield up all its plant-food in 
a year 

We have seen that when wheat or barley is dressed with sol- 



250 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



uble ammonia-salts or nitrate of soda, a considerable amount of 
the nitrogen is left in the soil — and yet this nitrogen is of compara- 
tively little benefit to the succeeding crops of wheat or barley, 
while a fresh dressing of ammonia-salts or nitrate of soda is of 
great benefit to the crop. 

In other words, when wheat is sown after wheat, or barley 
after barley, we do not get half the benefit from the manure which 
it is theoretically capable of producing. 



Now, the question is, whether by a judicious rotation of crops, 
we can avoid this great loss of manure ? 

There was a time when it was thought that the growth of tur- 
nips enriched the soil. I have heard it said, again and again, that 
the reason English farmers grow larger crops of wheat and barley 
than we do, is because they grow so many acres of turnips. 

" So I have often heard," said the Deacon, " and I supposed the 
broad turnip leaves absorbed nitrogen from the atmosphere." 

There is no evidence that leaves have any such power ; while 
there are many facts which point in an opposite direction. The 
following experiments of Lawes and Gilbert seem to show that the 
mere growth of turnips does not enrich land for grain crops. 

Turnips were grown on the same land, year after year, for ten 
years. The land was then plowed and sown to barley for three 
years. The following table gives the results : 

Three Tears of Barley after Ten Tears of Turnips. 



PAKTICULARS OP MANURES, ETC. 



Hoos-Field — 
Bailey, without manure, after 3 corn-crops 

Barn-Field— 
Barley, after 10 yrs. Tarnips manured as under— 

1.— Mineral manures (las>t 8 years) 

2.— Mineral manures (8 yrs.) ; Ammonia-salts (6 yrs.). 

3.— Mineral manures (8 yrs.) ; Rape-cake (6 yrs.) 

4.— Mineral manures (8 yrs.); Ammonia-salts and 
Rape-cake (G yrs.) 



5.--Mineral manures (8 yrs.) ; Ammonia-salts, for Bar- 
ley, 1854 

6.— Mineral manures (8 yrs.) ; Nitrate Soda, for Bar- 
ley, ''54 and '55 



Produce of Barley per Acre. 



bush. 
26 



20',^ 
231/8 



29^8 



bush. bush. 



351^ 



21 J4 



(20i,<) 52% 
(203^) 54% 



341/8 



20 
21 ?i 

231^ 

235^ 






busb. 
31^ 



20 
22 
255^ 

25% 



391^ 

47% 



The yield of barley after turnips is less than it is after grain 
crops, and it is evident that this is due to a lack of available nitro- 



MANURE FOR BARLEY. 251 

gen in the soil. In otlier words, the turnips leave less available 
nitrogen in the soil than grain crops. 

After alluding to the facts given in the foregoiug table, Messrs. 
Lawes and Gilbert say : 

" There is evidence of another kind that may be cited as show- 
ing that it was of available nitrogen that the turnips had rendered 
the soil so deficient for the after-growth of barley. It may be as- 
sumed that, on the average, between 25 and 30 lbs. of nitrogen 
would be annually removed from the Rothamsted soil by wheat 
or barley grown year after year without nitrogenous manure. But 
it is estimated that from the mineral-manured turnip-plots there 
were, over the 10 years, more than 50 lbs. of nitrogen per acre per 
annum removed. As, however, on some of the plots, small quan- 
tities of ammonia-salts or rape-cake were applied in the first two 
years of the ten of turnips, it is, perhaps, more to the purpose to 
take the average over the last 8 years of turnips only ; and this 
would show about 45 lbs. of nitrogen removed per acre per annum. 
An immaterial proportion of this might be due to the small 
amounts of nitrogenous manures applied in the first two years. 
Still, it may be assumed that about li time as much nitrogen was 
removed from the land for 8, if not for 10 years, in succession, as 
would have been taken in an equal number of crops of wheat or 
barley grown without nitrog'enous manure. No wonder, then, 
that considerably less barley has been grown in 3 years after a 
series of mineral-manured turnip-crops, than was obtained in an- 
other field after a less number of corn-crops. 

"The results obtained in Barn-field afford a striking illustration 
of the dependence of the turnip-plant on a supply of available ni- 
trogen within the soil, and of its comparatively great power of 
exhausting it. They are also perfectly consistent with those in 
Hoos-field, in showing that mineral manures will not yield fair 
crops of barley, unless there be, within the soil, a liberal supply of 
available nitrogen. The results obtained under such very different 
conditions in the two fields are, in fact, strikingly mutually con* 
firmatory." 



252 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



CHAPTER XXX 



MANURES FOR OATS. 

" What is tlie use of talking about manure for oats," said the 
Deacon, " if land is not rich enough to produce oats without ma- 
nure, it certainly will not pay to manure them. We can use our 
manure on some crop that will pay better." 

" That is precisely what we want to know," said I. " Very likely 
you are right, but have you any evidence ? " 

" Evidence of what ? " 

"Have you any facts that show, for instance, that it will pay 
better to use manure for wheat or barley than for oats ? " 

" Can't say that I have, but I think manure will pay better on 
wheat than on oats." 

Mr. Lawes is making a series of experiments on oats. Let U8 
take a hasty glance at the results of the first two seasons : 



Experiments on Oats at Rothamsted. 



MANURES PER ACRE. 


Grai7i, in 
bunhds. 


Sirato, ciots. 


Weight per 
bushel, lbs. 




1869. 


1870. 


1869. 


1870. 


1869. 


1870. 


1. — No manure 


36^8 

45 
561^ 

7514 
62J4 

69% 


16% 
191/8 

505/8 
36X 

50 


19^^ 

36% 

54 
425i 

49% 


91/8 

17J4 

28^ 


363^ 

38>^ 
37^ 

S8M 


35 


2.— Mixed Alkalies and Superphosphate 


3514 


3.— 400 tbs. Ammonia-salts . . 

4. — Mixed Alkalies and Superphosphate, 

and 400 lbs. Ammonia-salts 

5.— 550 lbs. Nitrate of Soda 


34>2 

36 

35^ 


6. — Mixed Alkalies, Superphosphate, 
and 550 lbs. Nitrate of Soda 


3534 



It seems clear that, for oats, as for barley and wheat, what we 
most need in manure, is available nitrogen. 

The first year, the no-manure plot produced 36f bushels of oats, 
per acre, weighing 36| lbs. per bushel, and plot 3, with ammonia- 
salts alone, 56^ bushels, and with nitrate of soda alone, on plot 5, 
62^ bushels per acre, both weighing 38^ lbs. per bushel. In other 
words, 82 lbs. of available nitrogen in the salts of ammonia gave 
an increase of about 20 bushels per acre, and the same quantity of 
nitrogen in nitrate of soda an increase of 26 bushels per acre. 

The next year, the season seems to have been a very unfayor^ 



MANURES FOR OATS. 253 

able one for oats. The no-manure plot produced less than 17 
bushels per acre ; and the " ashes " and superphosphate on plot 3, 
give an increase of less than 3 bushels per acre. But it will be 
seen that on plot 8 the ammonia-salts do as much good in this un- 
favorable season as in the favorable one. They give an increase 
of over 20 bushels per acre. 

"A few such facts as this," said the Deacon, " would almost 
persuade me that you are right in contending that it is in tiie un- 
favorable saasons, when prices arc sure to be high in this country, 
that a good farmer stands the best chance to maiie money." 

" Where mixed alkalies and superphosphate," said the Doctor, 
'* are added to the ammonia, the increase from, the ammonia is far 
greater than where ammonia is used alone. In other words, by 
comparing plot 2 and plot 4, you will see that the ammonia gives 
an increase of 30i bushels per acre in 18G9, and 31* bushels 
in 1870." 

The truth of the matter probably is this : 100 lbs. of available 
ammonia per acre is an excessive supply, when used alone. And 
in fact Mr. Lawes himself only recommends about half this 
quantity. 

'Whether it will pay us to use artificial manures on oats depends 
on the price we are likely to get for the oats. When the price of 
oats per lb. and oat-straw is as high as barley and barley-straw per 
lb. ^ then it w^ill ])aj n littte better to use manure on oats than on 
barley. As a rule in this country, however, good barky Js worth 
more per lb. than good oats ; and it will usually pay better to use 
artificial manures on barley than on oats. 

Some years ago Mr. Bath, of Virginia, made some experiments 
on oats with the following results : 

Bushels of oats 
per acre. 

No. 1—200 lbs. Superphosphate 32 

No. 2—200 lbs. Peruvian guano 48f 

No. 3—100 lbs. Peruvian guuno 32 

The oats were sown March 13, and the crop harvested July 4. 

In 1860, 1 made some experiments with gypsum, superphosphate, 
and sulphate of ammonia as a top-dressing on oats. 

The land was a clover-sod, plowed about the middle of May, 
and the oats sown May 20. On the 26th of May, just as the oats 
were coming up, the manures were sown broadcast. The oats 
were sown too late to obtain the best results. On another field, 
where the oats were sown two weeks earlier, the crop was decidedly 
better. The oats were cut August 28. 

The following is the result : 



254 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



Experiments on Oats at Moreton Farm, Rochester, N. Y. 



Hots, 


MANURES PER ACRE. 


Bushels 
of Oats 
2jer acre. 


Weight 

per Bushel 

in lbs. 


Straw 
per acre 
in lbs. 


No 1 




36 

47 
50 
50 

51 


22 
26 
21 
22 

22>^ 


1,958 
2,475 
2,475 
2,750 

2,575 


2 
3 
4 


600 lbs. (jtypsuiu (Sulphate of Lime) 

300 lbs. Siiperplioriphate of Lime 


5 


300 ibs. Siipei-phospluite of Lime, and 300 
lb-. Sulpliate ol Ammonia 



These experiments were made when my land was not as clean 
as it is now. I presume tlie weeds got more benefit from the am- 
monia than the oats. To top-dress foul land with expensive arti- 
ficial manures is money thrown away. If the land had been plowed 
in the autumn, and the seed and manures could have been put in 
early in the spring, I presume we should have had more favorable 
results. 

" Are you not ashamed to acknowledge," said the Deacon, *' that 
you have ever raised oats weighing only 22 lbs. per bushel." 

No. I have raised even worse crops than this — and so has the 
Deacon. But I made up my mind that such farming did not pay, 
and I have been trying hard since then to clean my land and get 
it into better condition. And until this is done, it is useless to talk 
much of artificial manures. 

The most striking result is the effect of the gypsum. It not only 
gave an increased yield of 11 bushels per acre, but the oats were of 
decidedly better quality, and there was nearly half a ton more 
straw per acre than on the plot alongside, where no manure was 
used. 

The superphosphate was a good article, similar to that used in 
Mr. Lawes' experiments. 



MANUEES FOE POTATOES. 255 

CHAPTER XXXI. 
MANURES FOR POTATOES. 

Some time ago, a farmer in Pennsylvania wrote me that he 
wanted " to raise a first-rate crop of potatoes." I answered him 
as follows through the American Agriculturist : 

" There are many ways of doing this. But as you only enter on 
the farm this spring, you will work to disadvantage. To obtain 
the best results, it is necessary to prepare for the crop two or three 
years beforehand. All that you can do this year is to select the 
best land on the farm, put on 400 lbs. of Peruvian guano, culti- 
vate thoroughly, and suffer not a weed to grow. A two or three- 
year-old clover-sod, on warm, rich, sandy loam, gives a good 
chance for potatoes. Do not plow until you are ready to plant. 
Sow the guano broadcast after plowing, and harrow it in, or apply 
a tablespoonful in each hill, and mix it with the soil. Mark out 
the rows, both ways, three feet apart, and drop a fair-sized potato 
in each hill. Start the cultivator as soon as the rows can be dis- 
tinguished, and repeat every week or ten days until there is danger 
of disturbing the roots. We usually hill up a little, making a broad, 
flat hill. A tablespoonful of plaster, dusted on the young plants 
soon after they come up, will usually do good. We recommend 
guano, because in our experience it does not increase the rot. 
But it is only fair to add, that we have not found even barn-yard 
manure, if thoroughly rotted and well mixed with the soil the fall 
previous, half so injurious as some people would have us suppose. 
If any one will put 25 loads per acre on our potato land, we will 
agree to plant and run the risk of the rot. But we would use some 
guano as well. The truth is, that it is useless to expect a large 
crop of potatoes, say 350 bushels per acre, without plenty of 
manure." 

This was written before the potato-beetle made its appearance. 
But I think I should say the same thing now — only put it a little 
stronger. The truth is, it will not pay to " fight the bugs " on a 
poor crop of potatoes. We must select the best land we have and 
make it as rich as possible. 

"But why do you recommend Peruvian guano," asked the 
Doctor, "rather than superphosphate or ashes ? Potatoes contain 
a large amount of potash, and one would expect considerable 
benefit from an application of ashes." 

" Ashes, plaster, and hen-dung," said the Judge, " will at any rate 



256 TALKS ON MANURES. 

pay well on potatoes. I have tried this mixture again and again, 
and always with good effect, " 

" I believe in the hen-dung," said I, " and possibly in the plaster, 
but on my land, ashes do not seem to be specially beneficial 
on potatoes, while I have rarely used Peruvian guano without 
good effect; and sometimes it has proved wonderfully profit- 
able, owing to the high price of potatoes." 



Sometime ago, I had a visit from one of the most enterprising 
and successful farmers in Western New York. 

"What I want to learn," he said, "is how to make manure 
enough to keep my land in good condition. I sell nothing but 
beans, potatoes, wheat, and apples. I feed out all m}^ corn, oats, 
stalks, straw, and hay on the farm, and draw into the barn-yard 
the potato-vines and everything else that will rot into manure. I 
make a big pile of it. But the point with me is to find out what is 
the best stock to feed this straw, stalks, hay, oats, and com to, so 
as to make the best manure and return the largest profit. Last 
year I bought a lot of steers to feed in winter, and lost money. 
This fall ], bought 68 head of cows to winter, intending to sell 
them in the spring." ' 

*' What did they cost you ? " 

" I went into Wyoming and Cattaraugus Counties, and picked 
them up among the dairy farmers, and selected a very fair lot of 
cows at an average of $22 per head. I 6xpect to sell them as new 
milch cows in the spring. Such cows last fepring would have "been 
worth $60 to $70 each." 

*' That will pay. But it is not often the grain-grower gets such a 
chance to feed out his straw, stalks, ana oiher fodder to advantage. 
It cannot be adopted as a permanent system. It is bad for the 
dairyman, and no real help to the graiii-grower. The manure is not 
rich enough. Straw and stalks aloao can not be fed to advantage. 
And when you winter cows to sell again in the spring, it will not 
pay to feed grain. If you were going to keep the cows it would pay 
well. The fat and flesh you put on in the winter would be re- 
turned in the form of butter and cheese next summer." 

" Why is not the manure good ? I am careful to save everything, 
and expect seven or eight hundred loads of manure in the spring." 

" You had 60 acres of wheat that yielded 25 bushels per acre, 
and have probably about 50 tons of wheat straw. You had also 
30 acres oats, that yielded 50 bushels per acre, say 85 tons of 
straw. Your 20 acres of corn produced 40 bushels of shelled corn 
per acre ; say the stalks weigh 30 tons. And you have 60 tons of 



MANUBES FOK POTATOES. 257 

hay, half clover and half timothy. Let us see what your manure 
from this amount of grain and fodder is worth. 

Manures from 

50 tons wheat-straw, @ $2.6S $ 134.00 

35 tons oat-straw, @ ^2.90 101.50 

30 tons corn-stalks, (a) $3.58 107.40 

30 tons timothy-hay, (OJ $6.43 192.90 

30 tons clover-hay, @ $9.64 289.20 

14 tons oats (1,5UU bush.), @ $7.70 107.80 

24 tons corn (bOO bushels), (^ $6.65 159.60 

Total . . 213 tons $1/092.40 

" This is the value of the manure on the land. Assuming that 
there are 600 loads, and that the labor of cleaning out the stables, 
piling, carting, and spreading the manure is worth 30 cents per 
load, or $180, we have $912.40 as the net value of the manure. 

*' Now, your 250-acre farm might be so managed that this amount 
of manure annually applied would soon greatly increase its fertUity. 
But you do not think you can afford to summer-fallow, and you 
want to raise thirty or forty acres of potatoes every year." 

*' I propose to do so," he replied. " Situated as I am, close to a 
good shipping station, no crop pays me better. My potatoes this 
year have averaged me over $100 per acre." 

"Very good. But it is perfectly clear to my mind that sooner 
or later, you must either farm slower or feed higher. And in your 
case, situated close to a village where you can get plenty of help, 
and with a good shipping station near by, you had better adopt 
the latter plan. You must feed higher, and make richer manure. 
You now feed out 213 tons of stuff, and make 600 loads of manure, 
worth $912.40. By feeding out one third, or 71 tons more, you can 
more than double the value of the manure. 

50 tons of bran or mill-feed would give manure worth $ 729.50 

21 tons decorticated cotton-seed cake 585.06 

"^314756 
" Buy and feed out this amount of bran and cake, and you would 
have 800 loads of manure, worth on the land $2,226.96, or, estimat- 
ing as before that it cost 30 cents a load to handle it, its net value 
would be $1,986.96." 



I am well aware that comparatively few farmers in this section 
can afford to adopt this plan of enriching their land. We want 
better stock. I do not know where I could buy a lot of steers that 
it would pay to fatten in the winter. Those farmers who raise 
good grade Shorthorn or Devon cattle are not the men to sell 
them half-fat at low rates. They can fatten them as well as I can. 
For some time to come, the farmer who proposes to feed liberally, 



258 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

will have to raise his own stock. He can rarely buy well-bred ani- 
mals to fatten. A good farmer must be a good farmer throughout. 
He can not be good in spots. His land must be drained, well- 
worked, and free from weeds. If he crops heavily he must manure 
heavily, and to do this he must feed liberally — and he can not 
afford to feed liberally unless he has good stock. 

" I have, myself, no doubt but you are right on this point," said 
the Doctor, " but all this takes time. Suppose a farmer becomes 
satisfied that the manure he makes is not rich enough. To tell him, 
when he is anxious to raise a good crop of potatoes next year, that 
he must go to work and improve his stock of cattle, sheep, and 
swine, and then buy bran and oil-cake to make richer manure, is 
somewhat tantalizing." 

This is true, and in such a case, instead of adding nitrogen and 
phosphoric acid to his manure in the shape of bran, oil-cake, etc., 
he can buy nitrogen and phosphoric acid in guano or in nitrate of 
soda and superphosphate. This gives him richer manure ; which 
is precisely what he wants for his potatoes. His poor manure is 
not so much deficient in potash as in nitrogen and phosphoric acid, 
and consequently it is nitrogen and phosphoric acid that he will 
probably need to make his soil capable of producing a large crop 
of potatoes. 

I have seen Peruvian guano extensively used on potatoes, and 

almost always with good effect. My first experience with it in this 

country, was in 1852. Four acres of potatoes were planted on a 

two-year-old clover-sod, plowed in the spring. On two acres, 

Peruvian guano was sown broadcast at the rate of 300 lbs, per acre 

and harrowed in. The potatoes were planted May 10. On the 

other two acres no manure of any kind was used, though treated 

exactly alike in every other respect. The result was as follows: 

No manure 119 bushels per acre. 

300 lbs. Peruvian guano 205 " " 

The guano cost, here, about 3 cents a lb., and consequently nine 

dollars' worth of guano gave 84 bushels of potatoes. The potatoes 

were all sound and good, but where the guano was used, they were 

larger, with scarcely a small one amongst them. 



In 1857, 1 made the following experiments on potatoes, in the 
same field on which the preceding experiment was made in 1852. 

In this case, as before, the land was a two-year-old clover-sod. It 
was plowed about the first of May, and harrowed until it was in a 
good mellow condition. The potatoes were planted in hills 3^ 



MANURES FOE POTATOES. 



259 



feet apart each way. The following table shows the manures used 
and the yield of potatoes per acre. 

Experiments on Potatoes at Moreton Farm. 



Description op Manurbs used, and quantities 
applied per acre. 



1§ 



5e 5. s 



Nomanure 

150 lbs. sulphate of ammonia 

!300 lbs. superphosptiate of lime 

1 150 lbs. sulphate of ammonia, and 300 lbs. superphos 
phate of lime 

[40J lbs. of unleached wood-ashes 

100 lbs. plaster, (gypsum, or sulphate of lime,) 

400 lbs. unleached wood-ashes and 100 lbs. plaster 

400 lbs. unleached wood-ashes, 150 lbs. sulphate of am- 
monia, and 100 lbs. plaster 

300 lbs. superphosphate of lime, 150 lbs. sulphate of am- 
monia and 400 lbs. unleached wood-ashes 



95 
140 
132 

179 

100 
101 
110 

109 

138 



43 



The superphosphate of lime was made expressly for experimen- 
tal purposes, from calcined bones, ground tine, and mixed with 
sulphuric acid in the proper proportions to convert all the phos- 
phate of lime of the bones into the soluble superphosphate. It was 
a purely mineral article, free from ammonia and other organic 
matter. It cost about two and a half cents per pound. 

Tiie manures were deposited in the hill, covered with an inch or 
two of soil, and the seed then planted on the top. Where super- 
phosphate of lime or sulphate of ammonia was used m conjunction 
with ashes, the ashes were first deposited in the hill and covered 
with a little soil, and then the superphosphate or sulphate of am- 
monia placed on the top and covered with soil before the seed was 
planted. Notwithstanding this precaution, the ram washed the 
sulphate of ammonia into the ashes, and decomposition, with loss 
of ammonia, was the result. This will account tor the less yield 
on plot 8 than on plot 2. It would have been better to have sown 
the ashes broadcast, but some previous experiments with Peruvian 
guano on potatoes indicated that it was best to apply guano m the 
hill, carefully covering it with soil to prevent it injuring the seed, 
than to sow it broadcast. It was for this reason, and for the greater 
convenience in sowing, that the manures were applied in the hill. 

The ash of potatoes consists of about 50 per cent of potash, and 
this fact has induced many writers to recommend ashes as a manure 
for this crop. It will be seen, however, that in this instance, at 



260 TALKS ON MANURES. 

least, they have very little effect, 400 lbs. giving an increase of only 
five bushels per acre. One hundred pounds of plaster per acre gave 
an increase of six bushels. Plaster and ashes combined, an increase 
per acre of 15 bushels. 

One fact is clearly brought out by these experimeuts : that this 
soil, which has been under cultivation without manure for many 
years, is not, relatively to other constituents of crops, deficient in 
potash. Had such been the case, the sulphate of ammonia and 
superphosphate of lime — manures which contain no potash — would 
not have given an increase of 84 bushels of potatoes j)er acre. 
There was sufficient potash in the soil, in an available condition, 
for 179 bushels of potatoes per acre ; and the reason why the soil 
without manure produced only 95 bushels per acre, was owing to 
a deficiency of ammonia and phosphates. 

Since these experiments were made, Dr. Voelcker and others have 
made similar ones in England. The results on the whole all point 
in one direction. They show that the manures most valuable for 
potatoes are those rich in nitrogen and phosphoric acid, and that 
occasionally potash is also a useful addition. 

" There is one thing I should like to know," said the Doctor. 
" Admittmg that nitrogen and phosphoric acid and potash are the 
most important elements of plant-food, how many bushels of po- 
tatoes should we be likely to get from a judicious application of 
these manures?" 

"There is no way," said I, " of getting at this with any degree 
of certamty. The numerous experiments that have been made in 
England seem to show that a given quantity of manure will produce 
a larger increase on poor land than on land in better condition." 

In England potatoes are rarely if ever planted without manure, 
and the land selected for this crop, even without manure, would 
usually be in better condition than the average potato land of this 
section, and consequently a given amount of manure, applied to 
potatoes here, would be likely to do more good, up to a certain 
point, than the same amount would in England. 

Let us look at some of the experiments that have been made in 
England : — 

In the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of 
Scotland for 1873 is a prize essay on " Experiments upon Potatoes, 
with Potash Salts, on Light Land," by Charles D. Hunter, F. C. S., 
made on the farm of William Lawson, in Cumberland. Mr. Hun- 
ter " was charged with the manuring of the farm and the purchas- 
ing of chemical manures to the annual value of £2,000," or say 
$10,000. 



MANURES FOR POTATOES. 261 

" Potatoes," says Mr. Hunter, " were largely grown on the farm, 
and in the absence of a sulBciency of farm-yard manure, potash 
naturally suggested itself as a necessary constituent of a chemical 
potato-manure. The soil was light and gravelly, with an open 
subsoil, and the rainfall from 29 to 38 inches a year." 

The first series of experiments was made in 1867. The follow- 
ing are some of the results : — 

Bushels per acre. 

No manure 221 

4 cwt. mineral superphosphate 225 

4 cwt. mineral superphosphate and ) „^„ 

4 cwt. of muriate of potash f ^^ 

15s tons farm-yard manure 293 

" That does not say much for potash and superphosphate," said 
the Deacon. " The superphosphate only produced four bushels 
more than the no manure, and the potash and superphosphate 
only fifteen bushels more than the superphosphate alone." 

It may be worth while mentioning that one of the experimental 
plots this year was on a head-land, " where the cattle frequently 
stand for shelter." This plot was dressed with only eight and a 
half tons of manure, and the crop was over 427 bushels per acre, 
while a plot alongside, without manure, produced only 163 bushels 
per acre. 

" That shows the importance," said the Deacon, " of planting 
potatoes on rich laud, rather than to plant on poor land and try to 
make it rich by applying majiure directly to the crop." 

The following are some of the results in 1868 : 

Bushels per acre. 

1 . No manure 232 

( 4 cwt. superphosphate ) 

2.-J2 " muriate of potash [-340 

(2 " sulphate of ammonia j 

3 . 20 tons farm-yard manure 342 

. j 4 cwt. superphosphate ) 074 

■ I 4 " muriate of potash [ 

" Here again," said the Doctor, " superphosphate and potash 
alone give an increase of only forty-two bushels per acre, while on 
plot 2, where two hundred weight of muriate of potash is substi- 
tuted by two hundred weight of sulphate of ammonia, the increase 
is 108 bushels per acre. It certainly looks as though a manure for 
potatoes, so far as yield is concerned, should be rich in available 
nitrogen." 



262 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

The following are some of the results in 1869 : 

Bushels per acre, 

1. No manure l'i'6 

■4cwt. superphosphate. 
n ji " sulphate of maj^nesia IgOg 



3 " muriate of potash , 

sulphate of ammonia. 

'4 cwt. superphosphate 189 

^ j 4 cwt. superphosphate ) oni 

^•■^2 " sulphate of ammonia. ^ " 



( 4 cwt. superphosphate \ 

5.-<a " muriate of potash V340 

(2 " sulphate of ammonia ) 

« j 4 cwt. superphosphate [ 040 

"• t 2 " muriate of potash ) 

"This is a very interesting experiment," said the Doctor. 
"Superphosphate alone gives an increase of thirteen bushels. 
Superphosphate and potash an increase of seventy-three bushels. 
The potash, therefore, gives an increase of sixty bushels. Super- 
phosphate and ammonia give twelve bushels more than superphos- 
phate alone, and the reason it does not produce a better crop is 
owing to a deficiency of potash. When this is supplied the am- 
monia gives an increase (plots 5 and 6) of ninety-one bushels per 
acre." 

In 1870 the above experiments were repeated on the same land, 
with the same general results. 

In 1871 some experiments were made on a sharp, gravelly soil, 
which had been over-cropped, and was in poor condition. The fol- 
lowing are the results : — 

BusJiels per acre. 

H j 9 cwt. superphosphate ) -■ o/» 

^- ■^ 3 " sulphate of ammonia. ^ ^°^ 



{9 cwt. superphosphate j 
3i " muriate of potash V204 
3 " sulphate of ammonia ) 

3. No manure 70 

{9 cwt. superphosphate '. ) 
3i " muriate of potash >-205 
3 *' sulphate of ammonia ) 



" On this poor soil," said the Doctor, " the ammonia and super- 
phosphate gave an increase of 116 bushels per acre ; and 3^ hun- 
dred weight of muriate of potash an increase, on one plot, of 
eighteen bushels, and on the other nineteen bushels per acre." 

In the same year, 1871, another set of experiments was made on 
a better and more loamy soil, which had been in grass for several 
years. In 1369 it was sown for hay, and in 1870 was broken up 
and sown to oats, and the next spring planted with potatoes. The 
following are some of the results; 



MANURES FOE POTATOES. 263 



Bicshels per acre. 
321 



( 6i cwt. superphosphate i 

l.-|3i " muriate ot potash >■ 

( 2k " sulphate of ammonia. ) 

o ( 6i cwt. superphosphate (.296 

'^'{2^ " sulphate of ammonia ) 

3. No manure , •^^'^ 

. ( 6i cwt. superphosphate f 311 

*• i 2i " muriate of potash ) 

5. 2i cwt. sulphate of ammonia 2d8 

6. 15 tons farm-yard manure ^o5 

"It is curious," said the Doctor, " that the plot with sulphate of 
ammonia alone should produce less than the no-manure plot." 

''The sulphate of ammonia," said I, "may have mjured the 
seed, or it may have produced too luxuriant a growth of vine." 

Another series of experiments was made on another portion of 
the same field in 1871. The "no-manure" plot produced 337 
bushels per acre. Manures of various kinds were used, but the 
largest yield, 351 bushels per acre, was from superphosphate and 
sulphate of ammonia ; fourteen tons barn-yard manure produce 
340 bushels per acre ; and Mr. Hunter remarks : " It is evident 
that, when the produce of the unmanured soil reaches nine tons 
[336 bushels] per acre, there is but little scope for manure of any 
kind." 

"I do not see," said the Doctor, "that you have answered my 
question, but I suppose that, with potatoes at fifty cents a bushel, 
and wheat at $1.50 per bushel, artificial manures can be more 
profitably used on potatoes than on wheat, and the same is prob- 
ably true of oats, barley, corn, etc." 

I have long been of the opinion that artificial manures can be 
applied to potatoes with more profit than to any other ordinary 
farm-crop, for the simple reason that, in this country, potatoes, on 
the average, command relatively high prices. 

For instance, if average land, without manure, will produce fif- 
teen bushels of wheat per acre and 100 bushels of potatoes, and a 
given quantity of manure costing, say $25, will double the crop, 
we have, in the one case, an increase of :— 

15 bushels of wheat at $1.50 $22.50 

15 cwt. of straw • ^"^ 

$26.00 

Cost of manure • 25.00 

Profit from using manure $1.00 

And in the other : — 

100 bushels of potatoes at 50 cents ^^K^m 

Cost of manure .. 25.00 

Profit from using manure $25.00 



264 TALKS ON MANURES. 

The only question is, whether the same quantity of the right 
kind of manure is as likely to doubje the potato crop as to double 
the wheat crop, when both are raised on average land. 

" It is not an easy matter," said the Deacon, " to double the yield 
of potatoes." 

" Neither is it," said I, " to double the yield of wheat, but both 
can be done, provided you start low enough. If your land is clean, 
and well worked, antl dry, and only produces ten bushels of wheat 
per acre, there is no difficulty in making it produce twenty bushels ; 
and so of potatoes. If the land be dry and well cultivated, and, 
barring the bugs, produces without manure 75 bushels per acre, 
there ought to be no difficulty in making it produce 150 bushels. 

" But if your land produces, without manure, 150 bushels, it is 
not always easy to make it produce 300 bushels. Fortunately, or 
unfortunately, our land is, in most cases, poor enough to start 
with, and we ought to be able to use manure on potatoes to great 
advantage." 

*' But will not the manure," asked the Deacon," injure the quality 
of the potatoes ? " 

I think not. So far as my experiments and experience go, the 
judicious use of good manure, on dry land, favors the perfect ma- 
turity of the tubers and the formation of starch. I never manured 
potatoes so highly as I did last year (1877), and never had potatoes 
of such high quality. They cook white, dry, and mealy. We 
made furrows two and a half feet apart, and spread rich, well-rotted 
manure in the furrows, and planted the potatoes on top of the ma- 
nure, and covered them with a plow. In our climate, I am inclined 
to think, it would be better to apply the manure to the land for 
potatoes the autumn previous. If sod land, spread the manure on 
the surface, and let it lie exposed all winter. If stubble land, 
plow it in the fall, and then spread the manure in the fall or win- 
ter, and plow it under in the spring. 



WHAT CROPS SHOULD MANUEE BE APPLIED TO. 265 



CHAPTER XXXII. 
WHAT CROPS SHOULD MANURE BE APPLIED TO. 

'*It will not do any harm on any crop," said the Deacon, "but 
on my farm it seems to be most convenient to draw it out in the 
winter or spring, and plow it under for corn. I do not know any 
farmer except you who uses it on potatoes." 

My own rule is to apply manure to those crops which require 
the most labor per acre. But I am well aware that this rule will 
have many exceptions. For instance, it will often pay well to use 
manure on barley, and yet barley requires far less labor than corn 
or potatoes. 

People who let out, and those who w^ork farms "on shares" 
seldom understand this matter clearly. I knew a farmer, who last 
year let out afield of good land, that had been in corn the previous 
year, to a man to sow to barley, and afterwards to wheat on " the 
halves." Another part of the farm was taken by a man to plant 
corn and potatoes on similar terms, and another man put in several 
acres of cabbage, beets, carrots, and onions on halves. It never 
seemed to occur to either of them that the conditions were un- 
equal. The expense of digging and harvesting the potato-crop 
alone was greater than the whole cost of the barley-crop ; while, 
after the barley was off, the land was plowed once, harrowed, and 
sowed to winter wheat ; and nothing more has to be done to it 
until the next harvest. With the garden crops, the difference is 
even still more striking. The labor expended on one acre of 
onions or carrots would put in and harvest a ten-acre field of 
barley. If the tenant gets pay for his labor, the landlord would 
get say $5 an acre for his barley land, and $50 for his carrot and 
onion land. I am pretty sure the tenants did not see the matter 
in this light, nor the farmer either. 

Crops which require a largo amount of labor can only be grown 
on very rich land. Our successful market-gardeners, seed-growers, 
and nurserymen understand this matter. They must get great 
crops or they cannot pay their labor bill. And the principle is ap- 
plicable to ordinary farm crops. Some of them require much more 
labor than others, and should never be grown unless tihe land is 
12 



266 TALKS ON MANUKES. 

capable of producing a maximum yield per acre, or a close ap- 
proximalion to it. As a rule, the lea^t-paying crops are those which 
require the least labor per acre. Farmers are afraid to expend 
much money for labor. They are wise iu this, unless all tbe con- 
ditions are favorable. But when they have laud in a high state of 
cultivation — drained, clean, mellow, and rich — it would usually pay 
them well to grow crops which require the most labor. 

And it should never be forgotten that, as compared with nearly 
all other countries, our labor is expensive. No matter how cheap 
our land may be, we can not attbrd to waste our labor. It is too 
costly. If men would work for nothing, and board themselves, 
there are localities where we could perhaps aflford to keep sheep 
that shear two pounds of wool a year ; or cows that make 75 lbs. 
of butter. We might make a proiit out of a w^ heat crop of 8 bush- 
els per acre, or a corn-crop of 15 bushels, or a potato-crop of 50 
bushels. But it cannot be done with labor costing from $1.00 to 
$1.35 per day. And I do not believe labor will cost much less in 
our time. The onl}^ thing we can do is to employ it to the best ad- 
vantage. Machinery w411 help us to some extent, but I can see no 
real escape from our difficulties in this matter, except to raise larger 
crops per acre. 

In ordinary farming, " larger crops per acre " means fewer acres 
planted or sown with grain. It means more summer fallow, more 
grass, clover, peas, mustard, coleseed, roots, and other crops that 
are consumed on the farm. It means more thorough cultiva- 
tion. It means clean and rich land. It means husbanding the 
ammonia and nitric acid, which is brought to the soil, as well as 
that which is developed from the soil, or which the soil attracts 
from the atmosphere, and using it to grow a crop every second, 
third, or fourth year, instead of every year. If a piece of land will 
grow 25 bushels of corn every year, we should aim to so manage 
it, that it will grow 50 every other year, or 75 every third year, or, 
if the climate is capable of doing it, of raising 100 bushels per acre 
every fourth year. 

Theoretically this can be done, and in one of Mr. Lawes' experi- 
ments he did it practically in the case of a summer-fallow for 
wheat, the one crop in two years giving a little more than two 
crops sow^n in succession. But on sandy land we should probably 
lose a portion of the liberated plant-food, unless we grew a crop of 
some kind every year. And the matter organized in the renovat- 
ing crop could not be rendered completely available for the 
next crop. In the end, however, we ought to be able to get it with 
little or no loss. How best to accomplish this result, is one of the 



WHAT CROPS SHOULD MANURE BE APPLIED TO. 267 

most interesting and important fields for scientific investigation and 
practical experiment. We know enough, however, to be sure that 
there is a great advantage in waiting until there is a sufficient ac- 
cumulation of available plant-food in the soil to produce a large 
yield, before sowing a crop that requires much labor. 

If we do not want to wait, we must apply manure. If we have 
no barn-yard or stable-manure, we must buy artificials. 

now AND WHEN MANURE SHOULD BE APPLIED. 

This is not a merely theoretical or chemical question. We must 
take into consideration the cont of application. Also, whether we 
apply it at a busy or a leisure season. I have seen it recommended, 
for instance, to spread manure on meadow-land immediately after 
the hay-crop was removed. Now, I think this may be theoretically 
very good advice. But, on my farm, it would throw the work 
right into the midst of wheat and barley harvests ; and I should 
make the theory bend a little to my convenience. The meadows 
would have to wait until we had got in the crops — or until harvest 
operations were stopped by rain. 

I mention this merely to show the complex character of this 
question. On my own farm, the most leisure season of the year, 
except the winter, is immediately after wheat harvest. And, as 
already stated, it is at this time that John Johnston draws out his 
manure and spreads it on grass-land intended to be plowed up the 
following spring for corn. 

If the manure was free from weed-seeds, many of our best farm- 
ers, if they had some well-rotted manure like this of John John- 
ston's, would draw it out and spread it on their fields prepared for 
winter- wheat. 

In this case, I should draw out the manure in heaps and then 
spread it carefully. Then harrow it, and if the harrow pulls the 
manure into heaps, spread them and harrow again. It is of the 
greatest importance to spread manure evenly and mix it thor- 
oughly with the soil. If this work is well done, and the manure 
is well-rotted, it will not interfere witli the drill. And the manure 
will be near the surface, where the young roots of the wheat can 
get hold of it. 

" You must recollect," said the Doctor, " that the roots can only 
take up the manure when in solution." 

" It must also be remembered," said I, " that a light rain of, say, 
only half an inch, pours down on to the manures spread on an 
acre of land about 14,000 gallons of water, or about 56 tons. If 



268 TALKS ON MANURES. 

you liave put on 8 tons of manure, half an inch of rain would fur- 
nish a gallon of water to each pound of manure. It is not difficult 
to understand, therefore, how manure applied on the surface, or 
near the surface, can be taken up by the young roots." 

" That puts the matter ua a new light to me," said the Deacon. 
"If the manure was plowed under, five or six inches deep, it 
would require an abundant rain to reach the manure. And it is 
not one year in five that we get rain enough to thoroughly soak 
the soil for several weeks after sowing the wheat in August or 
September. And when it does come, the season is so far advanced 
that the wheat plants make little growth." 

My own opinion is, that on clayey land, manure will act much 
quicker if applied on, or near the surface, than if plowed under. 
Clay mixed with manure arrests or checks decomposition. Sand 
has no such effect. If anything, it favors a more active decompo- 
sition, and hence, manure acts much more rapidly on sandy 
land than on clay land. And I think, as a rule, where a farmer 
advocates the application of manure on the surface, it will be 
found that he occupies clay land or a heavy loam ; while those 
who oppose the practice, and think manure should be plowed 
under, occupy sandy land or sandy loam. 

"J. J. Thomas," said I, ** once gave me a new idea." 

"Is that anything strange," remarked the Deacon. ** Are ideas 
so scarce among you agricultural writers, that you can recollect 
who first suggested them ? " 

"Be that as it may," said I, "this idea has had a decided influ- 
ence on my farm practice. I will not say that the idea originated 
with Mr. Thomas, but at any rate, it was new to me. I had always 
been in the habit, when spading in manure in the garden, of putting 
the manure in the trench and covering it up ; and in plowing it in, 
I thought it was desirable to put it at the bottom of the furrow 
where the next furrow would cover it up." 

" Well," said the Deacon, " and what objection is there to the 
practice V " 

" I am not objecting to the practice. I do not say that it is not a 
good plan. It may often be the only practicable method of apply- 
ing manure. But it is well to know that there is sometimes a better 
plan. The idea that Mr. Thomas gave me, was, that it was very 
desirable to break up the manure fine, spread it evenly, and thor- 
oughly mix it with the soil. 

" After the manure is spread on the soil," said Mr. Thomas, " and 
before plowing it in, great benefit is derived by thoroughly harrow- 
ing the top-soil, thus breaking finely both the manure and the soil. 



WHAT CROPS SHOULD MANUEE BE APPLIED TO. 269 

and mixing them well together. Another way for the perfect dif- 
fusion of the manure among the particles of earth, is, to spread 
the manure in autumn, so that all the rains of this season may dis- 
solve the soluble portions and carry them down among the parti- 
cles, where they are absorbed and retained for the growing crop. 

" In experiments," contihues Mr. Thomas, " when the manure 
for corn was thus applied in autumn, has afforded a yield of about 
70 bushels per acre, when the same amount applied in spring, gave 
only 50 bushels. A thin coating of manure applied to winter- 
wheat at the time of sowing, and was harrowed in, has increased 
the crop from 7 to 10 bushels per acre — and in addition to this, by 
the stronger growth it has caused, as well as by the protection it 
has afforded to the surface, it has not unfrequently saved the crop 
from partial or total winter-killing. 

" In cases where it is necessary to apply coarse manures at once, 
much may be done in lessening the evils of coarseness by artificially 
grinding it into the soil. The instrument called the drag-roller— 
which is like the common roller set stiff so as not to revolve— has 
been used to great advantage for this purpose, by passing it over 
the surface in connection with the harrow. We have known this 
treatment to effect a thorough intermixture, and to more than 
double the crop obtained by common management with common 
manure." 

TOP-DRESSING WITH MANURE. 

The term " top-dressing " usually refers to sowing or spreading 
manures on the growing crop. For instance, we top-dress pastures 
or meadows by spreading manure on the surface. If we sow ni- 
trate of soda, or guano, on our winter-wheat in the spring, that 
would be top-dressing. We often sow gypsum on clover, and on 
barley, and peas, while the plants are growing in the spring, and 
this is top-dressing. 

" If the gypsum was sown broadcast on the land before sowing 
the seed," said the Deacon, '* would not that be top-dressing also ? " 

Strictly speaking, I suppose that would not be top-dressing. 

Top-dressing in the sense in which I understand the term, is 
seldom adopted, except on meadows and pastures as a regular sys- 
tem. It is an after-thought. We have sown wheat on a poor, 
sandy knoll, and we draw out some manure and spread on it in the 
winter or early spring ; or we top-dress it with hen-manure, or 
guano, or nitrate of soda and superphosphate. I do not say that 
this is better than to apply the manure at the time of sowing the 



270 TALKS ON MANURES. 

wheat, but if we neglect to do so, then top-dressing is a commend- 
able practice. 

Dr. Voelcker reports the result of'some experiments in top-dress- 
ing winter-wheat on the farm of the Royal Agricultural College at 
Cirencester, England. The manures were finely sifted and mixed 
with about ten times their weight of fine soil, and sown broadcast 
on the growing wheat, March 22. A fine rain occurred the follow- 
ing day, and washed the manure into the soil. The following is 
the yield per acre : — 

No manure 27 bushels and 1984 lbs. of straw. 

280 lbs. Peruvian guano 40 " " 2576 " " 

195" nitrate of soda 38 " " 2695 " " 

180 " nitrate of soda, and 168 lbs. of 

commonsalt 40^ " '• 2736 " " 

448 lbs. Proctor's wheat-manure 39i " " 2668 " " 

672 " '< " <' 44i " " 3032 "■ " 

4 tons chalk-marl 27 " " 1872 " " 

The manures in each case cost $7.80 per acre, except the large 
dose of Proctor's wheat-manure, which cost $11.70 per acre. The 
wheat was worth $1.26 per bushel. Leaving the value of the straw 
out of the question, the profit from the use of the top-dressing was : 

With guano $8.70 per acre. 

" nitrate of soda 6.00 

" nitrate of soda and common salt.. .. 9.33 

" 448 lbs. wheat-manure 7.94 

" 672 '' " " 10.16 

The marl did no good. 

The nitrate of soda and common salt contained no phosphoric 
acid, and yet produced an excellent eflect. The guano and the 
wheat-manure contained phosphoric acid as well as nitrogen, and 
the following crop of clover would be likely to get some benefit 
from it. 

John Johnston wrote in 1868, " I have used manure only as a 
top-dressing for the last 26 years, and I do think one load, used in 
that way, is worth far more than two loads plowed under on our 
stiff land." 



MANUEES ON PERMANENT MEADOWS. 271 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

MANURES ON PERMANENT MEADOWS AND 
PASTURES. 

In this country, where labor is comparatively high, and hay 
often commands a good price, a good, permanent meadow fre- 
quently affords as much real profit as any other portion of the 
farm. Now that we have good mowing-machines, tedders, rakes, 
and loading and unloading apparatus, the labor of hay-making 
is greatly lessened. The only difficulty is to keep up and increase 
the annual growth of good grass. 

Numerous experiments on top-dressing meadows are reported 
from year to year. The results, of course, differ considerably, being 
influenced by the soil and season. The profit of the practice de- 
pends very much on the price of hay. In the Eastern States, hay 
generally commands a higher relative price than grain, and it not 
unfrequently happens that we can use manure on grass to decided 
advantage. 

The celebrated experiments of Messrs. Lawes & Gilbert with 
" Manures on Permanent Meadow-land " were commenced in 1856, 
and have been continued on the same plots every year since that 
time. 

" You need not be afraid, Deacon," said I, as the old gentleman 
commenced to button up his coat, " I am not going into the details 
of these wonderful experiments ; but I am sure you will be inter- 
ested in the results of the first six or seven years. 

The following table explains itself: 



272 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



,H ©» CO 



e^5 






^ 



1^ 






00 






i 


o 


to 


n 


OQO 


:? 


^ 


8 


V- 


w» 


^ 


s 



;S ^ 









o >,i- rios ^<r« S->Wth CO 









CO to TP-^ 



O «0 OT QOO CO 

^ § ^ PS 5§ 

•* rri o lo ITS lo 









COO 



t-ao 

CO'* 



^^ 



^1 



c5 

■ S J 






«i -y; <u' M 

;§'^.= S 

to . — _ 

« = r, = 






gcs 






_ c 

rt S 

a cc 



5 C^ g 






V— !f3 sJsS a^iS 2^: 






2o 



iCt CO-* lO 



a . a 
a ■ a 






in o 

(NO 



a-S a-e =s 5i2 
t- o) ^ D -*> >> 5 

I S " -2 'P -^ .■r; .C5 3 

fci3 a •- a ■- — -< a 



MANURES ON PERMANENT MEADOWS. 273 

These are all the figures I will trouble you with. The " mixed 
mineral manures " consisted of superphosphate of lime (composed 
of 150 lbs. bone-ash and 150 lbs. sulphuric acid, sp. gr. 1.7), 300 lbs. 
sulphate of potash, 200 lbs. sulphate of soda, and 100 lbs. sulphate 
of magnesia. The ammonia-salts consisted of equal parts sulphate 
and muriate of ammonia, containing about 25 per cent, of ammo- 
nia. The manures were sown as early as possible in the spring, 
and, if the weather was suitable, sometimes in February. The 
farmyard-manure was spread on the land, in the first year, in the 
spring, afterwards in November or December. The hay was cut 
from the middle to the last of June ; and the aftermath was pas- 
tured ofl" by sheep in October. 

" It is curious," said the Deacon, " that 400 lbs. of ammonia-salts 
should give as great an increase in the yield of hay the first year 
as 14 tons of farmyard-manure, but the second year the farmyard- 
manure comes out decidedly ahead." 

" The farmyard-manure," said I, " was applied every year, at the 
rate of 14 gross tons per acre, for eight years— 1856 to 1863. After 
1863, this plot was left without manure of any kind. The average 
yield of this plo^ during the first 8'years was 4,800 lbs. of hay per 
acre. 

On the plot dressed with 14 tons of farmyard-manure and 200 
lbs. ammonia-salts, the average yield of hay for 8 years was 5,544 
lbs. per acre. After the eighth year the farmyard-manure was dis- 
continued, and during the next twelve years the yield of hay 
averaged 3,683 lbs., or 1,149 lbs. more than the continuously unma- 
nured plot. 

In 1859, superphosphate of lime was used alone on plot 3, and 
has been continued ever since. It seems clear that this land, which 
had been in pasture or meadow for a hundred years or more, was 
not deficient in phosphates. 

" It does not seem," said the Deacon, *' to have been deficient in 
anything. The twentieth crop, on the continuously unmanured 
plot was nearly IJ ton per acre, the first cutting, and nearly f-ton 
the second cutting. And apparently the land was just as rich in 
1875, as it was in 1856, and yet over 25 tons of hay had been cut 
and removed from the land, without any manure being returned. 
And yet we are told that hay is a very exhausting crop." 

" Superphosphate alone," said the Doctor, " did very little to 
increase the yield of hay, but superphosphate and ammonia pro- 
duced the first year, 1859, over a ton more hay per acre than the 
superphosphate alone, and when potash is added to the manure, the 
yield is still further increased." 



274 TALKS ON MANURES. 

"Answer me one question," said tlie Deacon, " and let us leave 
the subject. In the light of these and other experiments, what do 
you consider the cheapest and best manure to apply to a perma- 
nent meadow or pasture?" 

" Rich, well-decomposed farmyard or stable manure," said I, 
"and if it is not rich, apply 200 lbs. of nitrate of soda per acre, in 
addition. This will make it rich. Poor manure, made from straw, 
corn-stalks, hay, etc., is poor in nitrogen, and comparatively rich 
in potash. The nitrate of soda will supply the deficiency of ni- 
trogen. On the sea-shore fish-scrap is a cheaper source of nitrogen, 
and may be used instead of the nitrate of soda." 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 
MANURES FOR SPECIAL CROPS. 

MANURES FOR HOPS. 

"For hops," said the Doctor, " there is nothing better than rich, 
"well-decomposed farmyard-manure — such manure as you are now 
making from your pigs that are bedded with stable-manure. " 

" That is so," said I, " and the better you feed your horses and 
pigs, the better will the manure be for hops. In England, Mr. 
Paine, of Surrey, made a series of experiments with diflPerent ma- 
nures for hops, and, as the result of four years trial, reported that 
rape-cake^ singly, or in combination, invariably proved the best 
manure for hops. In this country, cotton-seed, or cotton-seed- 
cake, would be a good substitute for the rape-cake. Whatever ma- 
nure is used should be used liberally. Hops require a large amount 
of labor per acre, and it is, therefore, specially desirable to obtain 
a large yield per acre. This can be accomplished only by the most 
lavish expenditure of manure. And all experience seems to show 
that it must be manure 7'icJi in nitrogen. In the hop districts of 
England, 25 tons of rich farmyard-manure are applied per acre ; 
and in addition to this, soot and rags, both rich in nitrogen, have 
long been popular auxiliaries. The value of soot is due to the 
fact that it contains from 12 to 15 per cent of sulphate of am- 
monia, and the fact that it has been so long used with success as a 
manure for hops, seems to prove that sulphate of ammonia, which 



MANURES FOR SPECIAL CROPS. 275 

can now be readily obtained, could be used to advantage by our 
hop-growers— say at the rate, in addition to farm-yard manure, of 
600 lbs. per acre, sown broadcast early in the spring. 

MANURES FOR TOBACCO. 

When tobacco is grown for wrappers, it is desirable to get a 
large, strong leaf. The richest land is selected for the crop, and 
large quantities of the richest and most stimulating manures are 
used. 

Like cabbages, this crop requires a large amount of plant-food 
per aore ; and, liiie them, it can only be grown by constant and 
high manuring. More manure must be used than the plants can 
take up out of the soil, and hence it is, that land which has been 
used for growing tobacco for some years, will be in high condition 
for other crops without further manuring. 

Farm-yard or stable-manure, must be the mainstay of the tobac- 
co-planter. "With this, he can use artificial fertilizers to advantage 
— such as fish-scrap, woollen-rags, Peruvian guano, dried blood, 
slaughter-house offal, sulphate of ammonia, nitrate of soda, etc. 

For choice, high-flavored smoking-tobacco, the grower aims to 
get quality ratlier than quantity. This seems to depend more on 
the land and the climate than on the manures used' Superphos- 
phate of lime would be likely to prove advantageous in favor- 
ing the early growth and maturity of the crop. And in raising 
tobacco-plants in the seed-bed, I sliould expect good results from 
the use of superphosphate, raked into the soil at the rate of three 
or four lbs. per square rod. 

MANURES FOR INDIAN CORN. 

"We know less about the manurial requirements of Indian corn, 
than of almost any other crop we cultivate. We know that wheat, 
barley, oats, and grasses, require for their maximum growth a lib- 
eral supply of available nitrogen in the soil. And such facts and 
experiments as we have, seem to indicate that the same is also true 
of Indian com. It is, at any rate, reasonable to suppose that, as 
Indian corn belongs to the same botanical order as wheat, barley, 
oats, rye, timothy, and other grasses, the general manurial require- 
ments would be the same. Such, I presume, is the case; and yet 
there seem to be some facts that would incline us to place Indian 
corn with the leguminous plants, such as clover, peas, and beans, 
rather than with the cereals, wheat, barley, oats, etc. 

" Why so," asked the Deacon, " Indian com does not have much 
in common with beans, peas, and clover? " 



276 TALKS ON MANURES. 

As we have shown, clover can get more nitrogen out of the soil, 
than wheat, barley, and oats. And the same is true of beans and 
peas, though probably not to so great an extent. 

Now, it would seem that Indian corn cin get more nitrogen out 
of a soil, than wheat, barley, or oats — and to this extent, at 
least, we may consider Indian corn as a renovating crop. In other 
words, the Indian corn can get more nitrogen out of the soil, than 
wheat, barley, and oats — and when we feed out the corn and 
stalks on the farm, we have more food and more manure than if 
we raised and fed out a crop of oats, barley, or wheat. If this 
idea is correct, then Indian corn, when consumed on the farm, 
should not be classed with what the English farmers term '' white 
crops," but rather with the " green crops." In other words, Indian 
corn is what old writers used to call a " fallow crop " — or what 
we call a renovating crop. 

If this is so, then the growth and consumption of Indian corn on 
the farm, as is the case with clover, should leave the farm richer 
for wheat, rather than poorer. I do not mean richer absolutely, 
but richer so far as the available supply of plant-food is concerned. 

" It may be that you are right," said the Doctor, " when corn is 
grown for fodder, but not when grown for the grain. It is the for- 
mation of the seed which exhausts the soil." 

If I could be sure that it was true of corn-fodder, I should have 
little doubt that it is true also of corn as ordinarily grown for 
grain and stalks. For, I think, it is clear that the grain is formed 
at the expense of the stalks, and not directly from the soil. The 
corn-fodder will take from the soil as much nitrogen and phos- 
phoric acid as the crop of corn, and the more it will take, the more 
it approximates in character to clover and other renovating crops. 
If corn-fodder is a renovating crop, so is the ordinary corn-crop, 
also, provided it is consumed on the farm. 

*' But what makes you think," said the Deacon, " that corn can 
get more nitrogen from the soil, than w^heat ? " 

" That is the real point. Deacon," said I, " and I will ask you this 
question. Suppose you had a field of wheat seeded down to clover, 
and the clover failed. After harvest, you plow up half of the field 
and sow it to wheat again, the other half of the field you plow in 
the spring, and plant with Indian corn. Now, suppose you get 15 
bushels of wheat to the acre, how much corn do you think you 
would be likely to get ? " 

" Well, that depends," said the Deacon, "but I should expect at 
least 30 bushels of shelled corn per acre," 

*' Exactly, and I think most farmers would tell you the same ; 



MANURES FOR SPECIAL CROPS. 277 

you get twice as much corn and stalks to the acre as you would of 
wheat and straw. In other words, while the wheat cannot find 
more nitrogen than is necessary to produce 15 bushels of wheat 
and straw, the corn can find, and does find, take up, and organize, 
at least twice as much nitrogen as the wheat." 

If these are facts, then the remarks we have made in regard to 
the value of clover as a fertilizing crop, are applicable in some de- 
gree to Indian corn. To grow clover and sell it, will in the end 
impoverish the soil ; to grow clover and feed it out, will enrich the 
land. And the same will be true of Indian com. It will gather 
up nitrogen that the wheat-crop can not appropriate ; and when 
the corn and stalks are fed out, some 90 per cent of the nitrogen 
will be left in the manure. 

" You do not think, then," said the Doctor, " that nitrogen is 
such an important element in manure for corn, as it is in a manure 
for wheat." 

I have not said that. If we want a large crop of corn, we shall 
usually need a liberal supply of available nitrogen. But this is 
because a larger crop of corn means a much larger produce per 
acre, than a large crop of wheat. Forty bushels of wheat per acre 
is an unusually large crop with us ; but 80 bushels of shelled com 
can be grown in a favorable season, and on rich, well-cultivated 
land. As the Deacon has said, 30 bushels of corn per acre can be 
grown as easily as 15 bushels of wheat ; and it is quite probable, in 
many cases, that a manure containing no nitrogen, might give us 
a crop of 35 or 40 bushels per acre. In other words, up to a cer- 
tain point, manures containing mineral, or carbonaceous matter, 
might frequently, in ordinary agriculture, increase the yield of In- 
dian corn ; while on similar land, such manures would have little 
effect on wheat. 

" That is so," said the Deacon, " we all know that plaster fre- 
quently increases the growth of corn, while it seldom does much 
good on wheat." 

But, after you have got as large a crop as the land will produce, 
aided by plaster, ashes, and superphosphate, say 40 bushels of 
shelled corn per acre, iJien if you want to raise 70 bushels per acre, 
you must furnish the soil with manures containing sufficient avail- 
able nitroaren. 



Some years ago, I made some careful experiments with artificial 
manures on Indian corn. 

" Oh, yes," said the Deacon, " they were made on the south lot, 



278 TALJiS ON MANUKKS. 

in front of my house, and I recollect that the N. Y. State Ag. 
Society awarded you a prize of $75 for them." 

"And 1 recollect," said I, " how *you and some other neighbors 
laughed at me for spending so much time in measuring the land 
aud applying the manures, and measuring the crop. But 1 wish I 
could have alVorded to continue them. A single experiment, how- 
ever carefully made, can not be depended on. lIoAvever, I will 
give the results for what the}' are worth, with some remarks made 
at the time : 

" The soil on which the experiments were made, is a light, sandy 
loam. It has been under cultivation for upwards of twenty years, 
and so far as I can ascertain has never been manured. It has been 
somewhat impoverished by the growth of cereal crops, and it was 
thought that for this reason, and on account of its light texture 
and '^.ctive character, which would cause the manures to act imme- 
diately, it was well adapted for the purpose of shownng the effect 
of dilterent manurial substances on the corn-crop. 

"The land was clover-sod, two years old, pastured the previous 
summer. It was plowed early in the spring, and liarrowed until 
in excellent condition. The corn was i)lantcd May 23, in hills 3.J- 
feet apart each way. 

" The manures were applied in the hill immediately before the 
seed was planted. 

"With superphosphate of lime, and. with plaster (gypsum, or 
sidpliak' of li'me), the seed was placed directly on top of the ma- 
nure, as it is well know^n that these manures do not injure the 
germinating principle of even the s'mallest seeds. 

" The ashes were dropped in the hill, and then covered with soil, 
and the seed planted on the top, so that it should not come in con- 
tact with the ashes. 

" Guano and sulphate of ammonia were treated in the same way. 

"On the plots where ashes and guano, or ash^^s and sulphate of 
ammonia were both used, tlie ashes were first put in the hill, and 
covered with soil, and the guano or sulphate of ammonia placed 
on the top, and also covered with soil before tlie seed was planted. 
The ashes and superphosphate of lime was also treated in the same 
way. It is well known that unleached ashes, mixed either with 
gnano, sulphate of ammonia, or superphosphate, mutually decom- 
pose each other, setting free the ammonia of the guano and sul- 
phate of ammonia, and converting the soluble phosphate of the 
superphosphate of lime into the insoluble form in which it existed 
before treatment with sulphuric acid. All the plots were planted 
on the same day, and the manures weighed and applied under my 



MANCKES FOii .SPECIAL Cli^PS. 



279 



own immr;fJiato suporvinion. Evf-rytbin;.^ was done that was 
deemed necessary to secure accuracy, 

"The following table gives the results of the experiments: 

TABLE BHOWIKO THE BB81.LTB OF EXFEBIXEMT8 0» IHDZAV COBH. 

-I -~ ^7 



*». DeBCEIPTIOX.H of MANf RK» AND 

^ 1 QCAJJTiTii;« AryLinii peb acbk. 



5| 



-S5 



^1 



1. No manure ' 60 i 

2. 100 lb». plaster (g> pHum or (nxlp/uiU of \ 

HtM) 70 

3. 400 IbH. unleachf^l wofxl-aBhcH and | 

100 IbB. plaster (mixed) 68 

4. ir/j IbH. Hulpbate of ammonia 90 ! 

0. .'i'Xi lbs. 8uperphoHi;bato of lirae 70 

6. 100 IbH. Hulphute of ammonia and fJOO 1 

lb-. KUperphoKphate of lime fmixedV 85 i 

7. 400 IbH. unleached wood-anlies, fan- j 

ceriain) GO' 

8. 150 lb». sulphate of ammonia and 400 

lbs. anleacbed wood-anhcH fsrjwn | 

separately; 87 i 

9. 300 IbH. Huperpho-phate ot lime, ]'/i \ 

lbs. Hulp:i. ammonia, and 40iJ lbs. 
' unleacJied wood-a^-hef 100 

10. 400 lbs. unleachcd wood-ashf« 60 

11. 100 IbH. plaster. 4^KJ lbs. unleached 

; wood-ashes, 300 lbs Ruperphos-l 
phateof lime, and 200 lbs. Peruvian! 
1 {fuano j 95 

12. 7.0 ibs. sulphate of ammonia I 78 

13. 2.'XJ Ib-i. Peruvian g ano ! 88 

14. 400 lbs. unleached wood-ashes, lO'Jj 
I lbs. plaster, and iiOO Iha. Peruvian 

I gtiano I 111 



14 



67 ! 

78 



1^ 









"^ 



78 
10.5 
78 

90 

72 

97 



108 
68 



1(K 
88 
101 

125 



11 



" The Buperphosphate of lime was made on purpose for these 
experiments, and was a pure mineral manure of .superior quality, 
made from calcined bones ; it co.st about 2^ cents per pound. The 
sulphate of ammonia was a good, commercial article, obtained 
from London, at a cost of about seven cents per pound. The a.she8 
wtre made from beech and hard maple (Acer s/ccluirlnum) wood, 
and were sifted through a fine sieve before being weighed. The 
guano was the best Peruvian, costing about three cents per pound. 
It was cro-shed and sifted before using. In sowing the ashes 
on plot 7, an error occurred in their application, and for the 
purpose of checking the result, it was deemed advisable to repeat 
the experiment on plot 10. 

" On plot o, with 300 lbs. of superphosphate of lime per acre, the 
plants came up first, and exhibted a healthy, dark-green appear- 



280 TALKS ON MANURES. 

ance, which they retained for some time. This result was not an- 
ticipated, though it is well known that superphosphate of lime ha3 
the effect of stimulating the germination of turnip-seed, and the 
early growth of the plants to an astonishing degree; yet, as it haa 
no such effect on wheat, it appeared probable that it would not 
produce this effect on Indian corn, which, in chemical composition, 
is very similar to wheat. The result shows how uncertain are all 
speculations in regard to the manurial requirements of plants. 
This immediate effect of superphosphate of lime on corn was so 
marked, that the men (who were, at the time of planting, somewhat 
inclined to be skeptical, in regard to the value of such small doses 
of manure), declared that ' superphosphate beats all creation for 
corn.' The difference in favor of superphosphate, at the time of 
hoeing, was very perceptible, even at some distance. 

" Although every precaution was taken that was deemed ne- 
cessary, to prevent the manures from mixing in the hill, or from 
injuring the seed, yet, it was found, that those plots dressed with 
ashes and guano, or with ashes and sulphate of ammonia, were in- 
jured to some extent. Shortly after the corn was planted, heavy 
rain set in, and washed the sulphate of ammonia and guano, down 
into the ashes, and mutual decomposition took place, with more 
or less loss of ammonia. In addition to this loss of ammonia, these 
manures came up to the surface of the ground in the form of an 
excrescence, so hard that the plants could with difficulty penetrate 
through it. 

"It will be seen, by examining the table, that although the su- 
perphosphate of lime had a good effect during the eaily stages of 
the growth of the plants, yet the increase of ears of corn in the end 
did not come up to these early indications. On plot 5, with 300 lbs. 
of superphosphate of lime per acre, the yield is precisely the same 
as on plot 2, with 100 lbs. of plaster {sulphate of Ume\ per acre. 
Now, superphosphate of lime is composed necessarily of soluble 
phosphate of lime and plaster, or sulphate of lime, formed from a 
combination of the sulphuric acid, employed in the manufacture of 
superphosphate, with the lime of the bones. In the 300 lbs. of 
superphosphate of lime, sown on plot 5, there would be about 100 
lbs. of plaster; and as the effect of this dressing is no greater than 
was obtained from the 100 lbs. of plaster, sown on plot 2, it fol- 
lows, that the good effect of the superphosphate of lime was due 
to the plaster that it contained. 

"Again, on plot 4, with 150 lbs. of sulphate of ammonia per 
acre, we have 90 bushels of ears of sound corn, and 15 bushels of 
ears of soft corn, ('nubbins,') per acre ; or a total increase over the 



MANURES FOE SPECIAL CROPS. 281 

plot without manure, of 38 bushels. Now, the sulphate of ammo- 
nia contains no phosphate of lime, and the fact that such a manure 
gives a considerable increase of crop, confirms the conclusion we 
have arrived at, from a comparison of the results on plots 2 and 5; 
that the increase from the superphosphate of lime, is not due to 
the phosphate of lime which it contains, unless we are to conclude 
that the sulphate of ammonia rendered the phosphate of lime in 
the soil more readily soluble, and thus furnished an increased 
quantity in an available form for assimilation by the plants — 
a conclusion, which the results with superphosphate alone, on 
plot 5, and with superphosphate and sulphate of ammonia, com- 
bined, on plot 6, do not sustain. 

"On plot 12, half the quantity of sulphate of ammonia, was 
used as on plot 4, and the increase is a little more than half what it 
is where double the quantity was used. Again, on plot 13, 200 lbs. 
of Peruvian guano per acre, gives nearly as great an increase of 
gound corn, as the 150 lbs. of sulphate of ammonia. Now, 200 lbs. 
of Peruvian guano contains nearly as much ammonia as 150 lbs. 
sulphate of ammonia, and the increase in both cases is evidently 
due to the ammonia of these manures. The 200 lbs. of Peruvian 
guano, contained about 50 lbs. of phosphate of lime ; but as the sul- 
phate of ammonia, which contains no phosphate of lime, gives as 
great an increase as the guano, it follows, that the phosphate of 
lime in the guano, had little, if any effect; a result precisely simi- 
lar to that obtained with superphosphate of lime. 

" We may conclude, therefore, that on this soil, which has never 
been manured, and which has been cultivated for many years with 
the Ceralia — or, in other words, with crops which remove a large 
quantity of phosphate of lime from the soil — the phosphate of 
lime, relatively to the ammonia, is not deficient. If such was not 
the case, an application of soluble phosphate of lime would have 
given an increase of crop, which we have shown was not the case 
in any one of these experiments. 

" Plot 10, with 400 lbs. of unleached wood -ashes per acre, pro- 
duces the same quantity of sound corn^ with an extra bushel of 
' nubbins ' per acre, as plot 1, without any manure at all ; ashes, 
therefore, applied alone, may be said to have had no effect what- 
ever. On plot 3, 400 lbs. of ashes, and 100 lbs. of plaster, give the 
same total number of bushels per acre, as plot 2, with 100 lbs. of 
plaster alone. Plot 8, with 400 lbs. ashes, and 150 lbs. of sulphate 
of ammonia, yields three bushels of sound corn, and five bushels 
of 'nubbins' per acre, less than plot 4, with 150 lbs. sulphate of 



282 TALKS ON MANUKES. 

ammonia alone. This result may be ascribed to the fact previously 
alluded to— the ashes dissipated some of the ammonia. 
"Plot 11, with 100 lbs. of plaster, 400 lbs. ashes, 300 lbs. of super- 
phosphate of lime, and 200 lbs. Peruvian guano (which contains 
about as much ammonia as 150 lbs. sulphate of ammonia), pro- 
duced precisely the same number of total bushels per acre, as plot 
4, with 150 lbs. sulphate of ammonia alone, and but 4 bushels more 
per acre, than plot 13, with 200 lbs. Peruvian guano alone. It is 
evident, from these results, that neither ashes nor phosphates had 
much effect on Indian corn, on this impoverished soil. Plot 14 re- 
ceived the largest dressing of ammonia (500 lbs. Peruvian guano), 
and produced much the largest crop ; though the increase is not so 
great in proportion to the guano, as where smaller quantities were 
used. 

" The manure which produced the most profitable result, was 
the 100 lbs. of plaster, on plot 2. The 200 lbs, of Peruvian guano, 
on plot 13, and which cost about $6, gave an increase of 14 bushels 
of shelled corn, and 6 bushels of ' nubbins.' This will pay at the 
present price of corn in Rochester, although the profit is not very 
great. The superphosphate of lime, although a very superior 
article, and estimated at cost price, in no case paid for itself. The 
same is true of the ashes. 

"But the object of the experiment was not so much to ascertain 
what manures will pay, but to ascertain, if possible, what constitu- 
ents of manures are required, in greatest quantity, for the maxi- 
mum growth of corn. * * Hitherto, no experiments have been 
made in this country, on Indian corn, that afforded any certain in- 
formation on this point. Indeed, we believe no satisfactory experi- 
ments have been made on Indian corn, in any countr}^ that throw 
any definite light on this interesting and important question. A 
few years ago, Mr. Lawes made similar experiments to those given 
above, on his farm, at Rothamsted, England ; but owing to the 
coolness of the English climate, the crop did not arrive at maturity. 

" Numerous experiments have been made in this country, with 
guano and superphosphate of lime; but the superphosphates used 
were commercial articles, containing more or less ammonia, and if 
they are of any benefit to those crops to which they are applied, it 
is a matter of uncertainty whether the beneficial effect of the appli- 
cation is due to the soluble phosphate of lime, or to the ammonia. 
On the other hand, guano contains both ammonia and phosphate; 
and we are equally at a loss to determine, whether the effect is at- 
tributable to the ammonia or phosphate, or both. In order, there- 
fore, to determine satisfactorily, which of the several ingredients 



MANURES FOR SPECIAL CROPS. 283 

of plants is required in greatest proportion, for the maximum 
growth of any particular crop, we must apply these ingredients sep- 
arately, or in such definite compounds, as will enable us to deter- 
mine to what particular element or compounds the beneficial efl'ect 
is to be ascribed. It was for this reason, that sulphate of ammo- 
nia, and a purely mineral superphosphate of lime, were used in 
the above experiments. No one would think of using sulphate of 
ammonia at its price, [sulphate of ammonia is now cheaper, while 
Peruvian guano is more costly and less rich in ammonia], as an 
ordinary manure, for the reason, that the same quantity of ammo- 
nia can be obtained in other substances, such as barnyard-manure, 
Peruvian guano, etc., at a much cheaper rate. But these manures 
contain all the elements of plants, and we can not know whether 
the efiect produced by them is due to the ammonia, phosphates, or 
any other ingredients. For the purpose of experiment, therefore, 
we must use a manure that furnishes ammonia without any ad- 
mixture of phosphates, potash, soda, lime, magnesia, etc., even 
though it cost much more than we could obtain the same amount 
of ammonia in other manures. I make these remarks in order to 
correct a very common opinion, that if experiments do not pay^ 
the^ are useless. The ultimate object, indeed, is to ascertain the 
most profitable method of manuring ; but the means of obtaining 
this information, can not in all cases be profitable. 

" Similar experiments to those made on Tndian corn, were made 
on soil of a similar character, on about an acre of Chinese sugar- 
cane. I do not propose to give the results in detail, at this time, 
and allude to them merely to mention one very important fact, the 
superphosphate of lime had a very marked effect. This manure was 
applied in the hill on one plot (the twentieth of an acre,) at the 
rate of 400 lbs. per acre, and the plants on this plot came up first, 
and outgrew all the others from the start, and ultimately attained 
the height of about ten feet ; while on the plot receiving no ma- 
nure, the plants were not five feet high. This is a result' entirely 
difierent from what I should have expected. It has been supposed, 
from the fact that superphosphate of lime had no effect on wheat, 
that it would probably have little effect on corn, or on the sugar- 
cane, or other ceralia ; and that, as ammonia is so beneficial for 
wheat, it would probably be beneficial for corn and sugar-cane. 
The above experiments indicate that such is the case, in regard to 
Indian corn, so far as the production of grain is concerned, though, 
as we have stated, it is not true in reference to the early growth of 
the plants. The superphosphate of liineon Indian corn, stimulated 
the growth of the plants, in a very decided manner at first, so 



284 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



much so, that we were led to suppose, for some time, that it would 
give the largest crop ; but at harvest, it was found that it produced 
no more corn than plaster. These results seem to indicate, that 
superphosphate of lime stimulates the growth of stalks and leaves, 
and has little effect in increasing the production of seed. In raising 
Indian corn, for fodder or for soiling purposes, superphosphate of 
lime may be beneficial, as well as in growing the sorghum for sugar- 
making purposes, or for foddder — though, perhaps, not for seed." 



" In addition to the experiments given above, I also made the 
same season, on an adjoining field, another set of experiments on 
Indian corn, the results of which are given below. 

" The land on which these experiments were made, is of a some- 
what firmer texture than that on which the other set of experi- 
ments was made. It is situated about a mile from the barn-yard, 
and on this account, has seldom, if ever been manured. It has 
been cultivated for many years with ordinary farm crops. It was 
plowed early in the spring, and it was harrowed until quite 
mellow. The corn was planted May 30, 1857. Each experiment 
occupied one-tenth of an acre, consisting of 4 rows 31 feet apart, 
and the same distance between the hills in the rows, with one row 
without manure between each experimental plot. 

" The manure was applied in the hill, in the same manner as in 
the first set of experiments. 

"The barnyard-manure was well-rotted, and consisted princi- 
pally of cow-dung with a little horse-dung. Twenty two-horse 
•wagon loads of this was applied per acre, and each load would 
probably v/eigh about one ton. It was put in the hill and covered 
with soil, and the seed then planted on the top. 

" The following table gives the results of the experiments : 

TABLE SHO"WXNa THE RESULTS OP EXPERIMENTS ON INDIAN CORN, MADE NEAR 
ROCHESTER, N. T , IN THE YEAR 1857. 



Descriptions of manures, and 
quantities applied per acre. 



1 . No manure 

2. 20 loads barn-yard manure 

3. 150 lbs. sulphate of ammonia 

4. 300 lbs. superphosphate of lime 

5. 400 lbs. Peruvian jjuano 

6. 400 lbs. of "Cancerine," or fish man'e 



'^ 



■fe^? ^^5 






1 K . ' 



5~ 2^ !^ ~ >* 



75 

82J 

85 

88 

90 

85 



f^" ,P^'^ 



10 



87 


1 


m 


5i 


115 


io 


9S 


11 


120 


15 


105 


10 



p 



5i 
28 
11 
33 
18 



MANURES FOR SPECIAL CROPS. 285 

" As before stated, the land was of a stronger nature than that 
on which the first set of experiments wac made, and it was evi- 
dently in better condition, as the plot hsving no manure produced 
20 bushels of ears of corn per acre more than the plot without 
manure in the other field. 

" On plot 4, 300 lbs. of superphosphate of lime gives a total in- 
crease of 11 bushels of ears of corn per acre over the unmanured 
plot, agreeing exactly with the increase obtained from the same 
quantity of the same manure on plot 5, in the first set of experi- 
ments. 

" Plot 3, dressed with 150 lbs. of sulphate of ammonia per acre, 
gives a total increase of 28 bushels of ears of corn per acre, over 
the unmanured plot ; and an increase of 22^ bushels of ears per 
acre over plot 2, which received 20 loads of good, well-rotted barn- 
yard-dung per acre. 

"Plot 5, with 400 lbs. of Peruvian guano per acre gives the best 
crop of this series viz : an increase of 33 bushels of corn per acre 
over the unmanured plot, and 27i over the plot manured with 
20 loads of barnyard-dung. The 400 lbs. of * Cancerine '—an arti- 
ficial manure made in New Jersey from fish — gives a total in- 
crease of 18 bushels of ears per acre over the unmanured plot, and 
12^ bushels more than that manured with barn-yard dung, though 
5 bushels of ears of sound corn and 10 bushels of 'nubbins' per 
acre less than the same quantity of Peruvian guano." 

MA.NURES FOR TURNIPS. 

To raise a large crop of turnips, especially of ruta-bagas, there is 
nothing better than a liberal application of rich, well-rotted farm- 
yard-manure, and 250 to 300 lbs. of good superphosphate of lime 
per acre, drilled in with the seed. 

I have seen capital crops of common turnips grown with no 
other manure except 300 lbs. of superphosphate per acre, drilled 
with the seed. Superphosphate has a wonderful effect on the de- 
velopment of the roots of the turnip. And this is the secret of its 
great value for this crop. It increases the growth of the young 
plant, developing the formation of the roots, and when the turnip 
once gets full possession of the soil, it appropriates all the plant- 
food it can find. A turnip-crop grown with superphosphate, can 
get from the soil much more nitrogen than a crop of wheat. The 
turnip-crop, when supplied with superphosphate, is a good *' scav- 
enger." It will gather up and organize into good food the refuse 
plant-food left in the soil. It is to the surface soil, what clover is 
to the subsoil. 



286 TALKS ON MANURES. 

To the market gardener, or to a farmer who manures heavily, 
coramoa turnips drilled iu with superphosphate will prove a valu- 
able crop. On such land no other manure will be needed. I can- 
not too earnestly recommend the use of superphosphate as a ma- 
nure for turnips. 

For Swede turnips or ruta-bagas, it will usually be necessary, in 
order to secure a maximum crop, to use a manure which, in addi- 
tion to superphosphate, contains available nitrogen. A good dress- 
ing of rich, well-rotted manure, spread on the land, and plowed 
under, and then 800 lbs. of superphosphate drilled in with the 
seed, would be likely to give a good crop. 

In the absence of manure, there is probably nothing better for 
the rutabagas than 300 lbs. of so-called "rectified" Peruvian 
guano, that is, guano treated with sulphuric acid, to render the 
phosphates soluble. Such a guano is guaranteed to contain 10 per 
cent of ammonia, and 10 per cent of soluble phosphoric acid, and 
would be a good dressing for Swede turnips. 

The best way to use guano for turnips is to sow it broadcast on 
the land, and harrow it iu, and then either drill in the turnip-seed 
on the flat, or on ridges. The latter is decidedly the better plan, 
provided you have the necessary implements to do the work expe- 
ditiously. A double mould-board plow will ridge up four acres a 
day, and the guano being previously sown on the surface, will be 
turned up with the mellow surface-soil into the ridge, where the 
seed is to be sown. The young plants get hold of it and grow so 
rapidly as to be soon out of danger from the turnip-beetle. 

MANURES FOR MANGEL-WURZEL OR SUGAR-BEETS. 

When sugar-beets are grown for feeding to stock, there is prob- 
ably little or no diflFerence in the manurial requirements of sugar- 
beets and mangel-wurzel. Our object is to get as large a growth 
as possible consistent with quality. 

*' Large roots," said the Deacon, " have been proved to contain 
less nutriment than small roots." 

True, but it does not follow from this that rich land, or heavy 
manuring is the chief cause of this difference. It is much more 
likely to be due to the variety selected. The seed-growers have 
been breeding solely for size and shape. They have succeeded to 
such an extent that 84 gross tons of roots have been grown on an 
acre. This is equal to over 94 of our tons per acre. " That is an 
enormous crop," said the Deacon; "and it would require some 
labor to put 10 acres of them in a cellar." 

"If they were as nutritious as ordinary mangels," said I, ** that 



MANURES FOR SPECIAL CROPS. 287 

would be no argument against them. But such is not the case. 
In a letter just. received from Mr. Lawes, (May, 1878,) he charac- 
terizes them as ' bladders of water and salts.' " 

Had the seed-growers bred for quality, the roots would have 
been of less size, but they would contain more nutriment. 

What we want is a variety that has been bred with reference to 
quality; and when this is secured, we need not fear to make the 
land rich and otherwise aim to secure great growth and large-sized 
roots. 

It certainly is not good economy to select a variety which has 
been bred for years to produce large-sized roots, and then sow this 
seed on poor land for the purpose of obtaining small-sized roots. 
Better take a variety bred for quality, and then make the land rich 
enough to produce a good crop. 

We are not likely to err in making the land too rich for mangel, 
wurzel or for sugar-beets grown for stock. When sugar-beets are 
grown for sugar, we must aim to use manures favorable for the pro- 
duction of sugar, or rather to avoid using those which are un- 
favorable. But where sugar-beets are grown for food, our aim is 
to get a large amount of nutriment to the acre. And it is by no 
means clear to my mind that there is much to be gained by select- 
ing the sugar-beet instead of a good variety of mangel-wurzel. It 
is not a difficult matter, by selecting the largest roots for seed, and 
by liberal manuring, and continuously selecting the largest roots, 
to convert the sugar-beet into a mangel-wurzel. 

When sugar-beets are grown for food, we may safely manure 
them as we would mangel-wurzel, and treat the two crops pre- 
cisely alike. 

I usually raise from ten to fifteen acres of mangel-wurzel every 
year. I grow them in rotation with other crops, and not as the 
Hon. Harris Lewis and some others do, continuously on the same 
land. We manure liberally, but not extravagantly, and get a fair 
yield, and the land is left in admirable condition for future crops. 

I mean by this, not that the land is specially rich, but that it is 
very clean and mellow. 

" In 1877," said the Deacon, " you had potatoes on the land 
where you grew mangels the previous year, and had the best crop 
in the neighborhood." 

This is true, but still I do not think it a good rotation. A barley 
crop seeded with clover would be better, especially if the mangels 
were heavily manured. The clover would get the manure which 
had been washed into the subsoil, or left in such a condition that 
potatoes or grain could not take it up. 



288 TALKS ON MANURES. 

There is one thing in relation to my mans^els of 1876 which has 
escaped the Deacon. The whole pipce was manured and well pre- 
pared, and dibbled in with mangels, the rows being 2^ feet apart, 
and the seed dropped 15 inches apart in the rows. Owing to poor 
seed, the mangels failed on about three acres, and we plowed up 
the land and drilled in corn for fodder, in rows 2^ feet apart, and 
at the rate of over three bushels of seed per acre. We had a great 
crop of corn-fodder. 

The next year, as I said before, the whole piece was planted 
with potatoes, and if it was true that mangels are an " enriching 
crop," while corn is an "exhausting" crop, we ought to hav^e had 
much better potatoes after the mangels than after corn. This was 
certainly not the case ; if there was any difference, it was in favor 
of the corn. But I do not place any confidence in an experiment 
of this kind, where the crops were not weighed and the results 
carefully ascertained. 

Mr. Lawes has made some most thorough experiments with dif- 
ferent manures on sugar-beets, and in 1876 he commenced a series 
of experiments with mangel-wurzel. 

The land is a rather stiff clay loam, similar to that on which the 
wheat and barley experiments wera made. It is better suited to 
the growth of beets than of turnips. 

" Why so," asked the Deacon, " I thought that black, bottom 
land was best for mangels." 

"Not so. Deacon," said I, "we can, it is true, grow large crops 
of mangels on well-drained and well-manured swampy or bottom 
land, but the best soil for mangels, especially in regard to quality, 
is a good, stiff, well-worked, and well-manured loam." 

" And yet," said the Deacon, " you had a better crop last year 
on the lower and blacker portions of the field than on the heavy, 
clayey land." 

in one sense, this is true. We had dry weather in the spring, 
and the mangel seed on the dry, clayey land did not come up as 
well as on the cooler and moister bottom-land. We had more 
plants to the acre, but the roots on the clayey land, when they 
once got fair hold of the soil and the manure, grew larger and bet- 
ter than on the lighter and moister land. The great point is to get 
this heavy land into a fine, mellow condition. 

But to Mr. Lawes' experiments. They are remarkably interest- 
ing and instructive. But it is not necessary to go into all the de- 
tails. Sufiice it to say that the experhnents seem to prove, very 
conclusively, that beets require a liberal supply of available nitro- 



MANURES FOK SPECIAL CROPS. 289 

gen. Thus, without manure, the yield of beets was about 7^ tons 
of bulbs per acre. 

With 550 lbs. nitrate of soda per acre, the yield was a little over 
23 tons per acre. With 14 tons of farmyard-manure, 18 tons per 
acre. With 14 tons of farmyard- manure and 550 lbs. nitrate of 
soda, over 27^ tons per acre. 

Superphosphate of lime, sulphates of potash, soda, and magne- 
sia, and common salt, alone, or with other manures, had compara- 
tively little effect. 

Practically, when we want to grow a good crop of beets or man- 
gels, these experiments prove that what we need is the richest kind 
of barnyard-manure. 

If our manure is not rich, then we should use, in addition to the 
manure, a dressing of nitrate of soda — say 400 or 500 lbs. per acre. 
. If the land is in pretty good condition, and we have no barn- 
yard-manure, we may look for a fair crop from a dressing of ni- 
trate of soda alone. 

" I see," said the Deacon, " that 550 lbs. of nitrate of soda alone, 
gave an increase of 14J tons per acre. And the following year, on 
the same land, it gave an increase of 13^ tons ; and the next year, 
on the same land, over 9 tons." 

'* Yes," said I, " the first three years of the experiments (1871-2-3), 
550 lbs. of nitrate of soda alone, applied every year, gave an average 
yield of 19^ tons of bulbs per acre. During the same three years, 
the plot dressed with 14 tons of barnyard-manure, gave an average 
yield of 161: tons. But now mark. The next year (1874) all the 
plots were left without any manure, and the plot which had been 
previously dressed with nitrate of soda, alone, fell off to 3 tons per 
acre, while the plot which had been previously manured with 
barnyard-manure, produced 10| tons per acre." 

" Good," said the Deacon, " there is nothing like manure." 

MANURES FOR CABBAGE, PARSNIPS, CARROTS, LETTUCE, 
ONIONS, ETC. 

I class these plants together, because, though diflFering widely in 
many respects, they have one feature in common. They are all 
artificial productions. 

A distinguished amateur horticulturist once said to me, " T do 
not see why it is I have so much trouble with lettuce. My land is 
rich, and the lettuce grow well, but do not head. They have a 
tendency to run up to seed, and soon get tough and bitter." 

I advised him to raise his own seed from the best plants — and 
especially to reject all plants that showed any tendency to go pre- 
13 



290 TALKS ON MANURES. 

maturely to seed. Furthermore, I told him I thought if he would 
sow a little superphosphate of lime with the seed, it would greatly 
stimulate the early growth of the lettuce. 

As I have said before, superphosphate, when drilled in with the 
seed, has a wonderful effect in developing the root-growth of the 
young plants of turnips, and I thought it would have the same 
effect on lettuce, cabbage, cauliflowers, etc. 

" But," said he, " it is not 7'oots that 1 want, but heads." 

" Exactly," said I, " you do not want the plants to follow out 
their natural disposition and run up to seed. You want to induce 
them to throw out a great abundance of tender leaves. In other 
words, you want them to ' head.' Just as in the turnip, you do not 
want them to run up to seed, but to produce an unnatural develop- 
ment of ' bulb.' " 

Thirty years ago. Dr. Gilbert threw out the suggestion, that 
while it was evident that turnips required a larger proportion of 
soluble phosphates in the soil than wheat ; while wheat required a 
larger proportion of available nitrogen m the soil, than turnips, it 
was quite probable, if we were growing turnips /6>7' seed, that then, 
turnips would require the same kind of manures as wheat. 



We want exceedingly rich land for cabbage, especially for an 
early crop. This is not merely because a large crop of cabbage 
takes a large amount of plant-food out of the soil, but because 
the cultivated cabbage is an artificial plant, that requires its food 
in a concentrated shape. In popular language, the plants have to 
be " forced." 

According to the analyses of Dr. Anderson, the outside leaves of 
cabbage, contain, in round numbers, 91 per cent of water ; and the 
heart leaves, 94^ per cent. In other words, the green leaves con- 
tain 3i per cent more dry matter than the heart leaves. 

Dr. Voelcker, who analyzed more recently some " cattle-cab- 
bage," found 89i per cent of water in the green leaves, and 83f 
per cent in the heart and inner leaves — thus confirming previous 
analyses, and showing also that the composition of cabbages varies 
considerably. 

Dr. Voelcker found much less water in the cabbage than Dr. 
Anderson. 

The specimen analyzed by Dr. V., was grown on the farm of 
the Koyal Ag. College of England, and I infer from some incidental 
remarks, that the crop was grown on rather poor land. And it is 
probably true that a large crop of cabbage grown on rich land, con- 
tains a higher percentage of water than cabbage grown on poorer 



MANURES FOR SPECIAL CROPS. 291 

land. On the poor land, the cabbage would not be likely to head 
so well as on the rich land, and the green leaves of cabbage con- 
tain more than half as much again real dry substance as the heart 
leaves. 

The dry matter of the heart leaves, however, contains more 
actual nutriment than the dry matter of the green leaves. 

It would seem very desirable, therefore, whether we are raising 
cabbage for market or for home consumption, to make the land 
rich enough to grow good heads. Dr. Voelcker says, " In ordinary 
seasons, the average produce of Swedes on our poorer fields is 
about 15 tons per acre. On weighing the produce of an acre o( 
cabbage, grown under similar circumstances, I found that it 
amounted to 17i tons per acre. On good, well-manured fields, 
however, we have had a much larger produce." 

In a report on the " Cultivation of Cabbage, and its comparative 
Value for Feeding purposes," by J. M. M'Laren, of Scotland, the 
yield of Swede turnips, was 29f tons per acre, and the yield of cab- 
bage, 47f tons per acre. 

" It is very evident," said the Deacon, " that if you grow cabbage 
you should make the land rich enough to produce a good crop— 
and I take it that is all you want to show." 

" I want to sliow," I replied, " that our market gardeners have 
reason for applying such apparently excessive dressings of rich 
manure to the cabbage-crop. They find it safer to put far more 
manure into the land than the crop can possibly use, rather than 
run any risk of getting an inferior crop. An important practical 
question is, whether they can not grow some crop or crops after 
the cabbage, that can profitably take up the manure left in the soil." 
Prof. E. WolS", in the last edition of " Praktische Diiugerlehre," 
gives the composition of cabbage. For the details of which, see 
Appendix, page 345. 

From this it appears that 50 tons of cabbage contain 24t) lbs. of 
nitrogen, and 1,600 lbs. of ash. Included in the ash is G30 lbs. 
of potash; 90 lbs. of soda; 310 lbs. of lime; 60 lbs. of magnesia; 
140 lbs. of phosphoric acid ; 240 lbs. of sulphuric acid, and 20 lbs! 
of silica. 



Henderson, in " Gardening for Profit," advises the application 
of 75 tons of stable or barn-yard manure per acre, for early cab- 
bage. For late cabbage, after peas or early potatoes, he says about 
10 tons per acre are used. 

Brill, in "Farm Gardening and Seed Growing," also makes the 
same distinction in regard to the quantity of manure used for early 



292 TALKS ON MANUEES. 

and late cabbage. He speaks of 70 to 80 tons or more, per acre, of 
well-rotted stable -manure as not an unusual or excessive dressing 
every year. 

Now, according to Wolff's table, 75 tons of fresh stable-manure, 
with straw, contains 820 lbs. of nitrogen ; 795 lbs. of potash ; 150 
lbs. soda ; 315 lbs. of lime ; 210 lbs. of magnesia; 420 lbs. of phos- 
phoric acid ; 105 lbs. sulphuric acid ; 2,655 lbs. of silica, and 60 lbs. 
of chlorine. 

*' Put the figures side by side," said the Deacon, " so that we can 
compare them." 

Here they are : 



Nitrosren 

Potash 

Phosphoric acid 

Soda 

Lime 

Magnesia 



75 tons 

Fresh Horse 

Manure. 



820 lbs. 

795 " 

420 " 

150 " 

315 " 

210 " 



50 tons 
Cabbage. 

"240 IbsT 
630 
140 

90 
310 

60 



" That is rather an interesting table," said the Doctor. " In the 
case of lime, the crop takes about all that this heavy dressing of 
manure supplies — but I suppose the soil is usually capable of fur- 
nishing a considerable quantity." 

" That may be so," said the Deacon, " but all the authorities on 
market gardening speak of the importance of either growing cab- 
bage on land containing lime, or else of applying lime as a manure. 
Quinn, who writes like a sensible man, says in h s book, 'Money 
in the Garden,' ' A top-dressing of lime every third year, thirty or 
forty bushels per acre, spread broadcast, and harrowed in, just be- 
fore planting, pays handsomely.' " 

Henderson thinks cabbage can only be grown successfully on 
land containing abundance of lime. He has used heavy dressings 
of lime on land which did not contain shell«, and the result was 
satisfactory for a time, but he found it too expensive. 

Experience seems to show that to grow large crops of perfect 
cabbage, the soil must be liberally furnished with manures rich in 
nitrogen and phosphoric acid. 

In saying this, I do not overlook the fact that cabbage require a 
large quantity of potash. I think, however, that when large quan- 
tities of stable or barn-yard manure is used, it will rarely be found 
that the soil lacks potash. 

"What we need to grow a large crop of cabbage, is manure from 
well-fed animals. Such manure can rarely be purchased. Now, 
the difference between rich manure and ordinary stable or bam- 



MANURES FOB SPECIAL CROPS. 293 

yard-manure, consists principally in this : Tlie rich manure con- 
tains more nitrogen and phosphoric acid than the ordinary stable- 
manure— and it is in a more available condition. 

To convert common manure into rich manure, therefore, we must 
add nitrogen and phosphoric acid. In other words, we must use 
Peruvian guano, or nitrate of soda and superphosphate, or bone- 
dust, or some other substance that will furnish available uitroo-en 
and phosphoric acid. '^ 

Or it may well be, where stable-manure can be bought for $1.00 
per two-horse load, that it will be cheaper to use it in larger quan- 
tity rather than to try to make it rich. In this case, however, we 
must endeavor to follow the cabbage by some crop that has 'the 
power of taking up the large quantity of nitrogen and other plant- 
food that will be lelt in the soil. 

The cabbage needs a large supply of nitrogen in the soil, but re- 
moves comparatively little of it. We see that when 75 tons of 
manure is used, a crop of 50 tons of cabbage takes out of the soil 
less than 30 per cent of the nitrogen. And yet, if you plant cab- 
bage on this land, the next year, without manure, you would get 
a small crop. 
*' It cannot be for want of nitrogen," said the Deacon. 
" Yes it can," said I. ** The cabbage, especially the early kinds 
must have in the soil a much larger quantity of available nitrogen 
than the plants can use." 

I do not mean by this that a large crop of cabbage could be 
raised, year after year, if furnished only with a large supply of avail- 
able nitrogen. In such a case, the soil would soon lack the necessary 
inorganic ingredients. But, what I mean, is this : Where land has 
been heavily manured for some years, we could often raise a good 
crop of cabbage by a liberal dressing of available nitrogen, and still 
more frequently, if nitrogen and phosphoric acid were both used. 
You may use what would be considered an excessive quantity 
of ordmary stable-manure, and grow a large crop of cabbaije ; but 
still, if you plant cabbage the next year, without manure of any 
kind, you will get a small crop; but dress it with a manure con- 
taining the necessary dmount of nitrogen, and you will, so far as 
the supply of plant-food is concerned, be likely to get a good crop. 
In such circumstances, I think an application of 800 lbs. of ni- 
trate of soda per acre, costing, say $32, would be likely to afford a 
very handsome profit. 

For lettuce, in addition to well prepared rich land, I should sow 
B lbs. of superphosphate to each square rod, scattered in the rows 



294 TALKS ON MANURES. 

before drilling in the seed. It will favor the formation of fibrous 
roots and stimulate the growth of the young plants. 

In raising onions from seed, we require an abundance of rich, 
well-rotted manure, clean laud, and early sowing. 

Onions rre often raised year after year on the same land. That 
this entails a great waste of manure, is highly probable, but it is 
not an easy matter to get ordinary farm-land properly prepared 
for onions. It needs to be clean and free from stones and rubbish 
of all kinds, and when once it is in good condition, it is thought 
better to continue it in onions, even though it may entail more or 
less loss of fertility. 

" What do you mean," asked the Deacon, " by loss of manure ? " 

" Simply this," said I. " We use a far greater amount of plant- 
food in the shape of manure than is removed by the crop of onions. 
And yet, notwithstanding this fact, it is found, as a matter of ex- 
perience, that it is absolutely necessary, if we would raise a large 
and profitable crop, to manure it every year." 

A few experiments would throw much light on this matter. I 
should expect, when land had been heavily dressed every year for 
a few years, with stable-manure, and annually sown to onions, 
that 800 lbs. of sulphate of ammonia, or of nitrate of soda, or 1,200 
lbs. of Peruvian guano would give as good a crop as 25 or 30 tons 
of manure. Or perhaps a better plan would be to apply 10 or 15 
loads of manure, and 600 lbs. of guano, or 400 lbs. sulphate of am- 
monia. 



CHAPTEE XXXV. 
MANURES FOR GARDENS AND ORCHARDS. 

MANURE FOR MARKET-GARDENS. 

The chief dependence of the market -gardener must be on the 
stable-manure which he can obtain from the city or village. The 
chief defect of this manure is that it is not rich enough in avail- 
able nitrogen. The active nitrogen exists principally in the urine, 
and this in our city stables is largely lost. A to^i of fresh, unmixed 
horse-dung contains about 9 lbs. of nitrogen. A ton of horse-urine, 
31 lbs. But this does not tell the whole story. The nitrogen in 
the dung is contained in the crude, undigested portions of the 
food. It is to a large extent insoluble and unavailable, while the 
nitrogen in the urine is soluble and active. 



MANURES FOR GARDENS AND ORCHARDS. 295 

The market-gardener, of course, lias to take such manure as he 
can get, and the only points to be considered are (1), whether he 
had better continue to use an excessive quantity of the manure, or 
(3), to buy substances rich in available nitrogen, and either mix 
them with the manure, or apply them separately to the soil, or (3), 
whether he can use this horse-manure as bedding for pigs to be 
fed on rich nitrogenous food. 

The latter plan I adopt on my own farm, and in this way I get 
a very rich and active manure. I get available nitrogen, phosphoric 
acid, and potash, at far cheaper rates than they can be purchased in 
the best commercial fertilizers. 

Pigs void a large amount of urine, and as pigs are ordinarily 
kept, much of this liquid is lost for want of sufficient bedding to 
absorb it. With the market-gardener or nurseryman, who draws 
large quantities of horse-manure from the city, this need not be 
the case. The necessary buildings can be constructed at little cost, 
and the horse-manure can be used freely. The pigs should be fed 
on food rich in nitrogen, such as bran, malt-combs, brewers' grains, 
the refuse animal matter from the slaughter-houses or butchers' 
stores, fish scrap, pea or lentil-meal, palm-nut cake, or such food 
as will furnish the most nitrogenous food, other things being 
equal, at the cheapest rate. 

The market -gardener not only requires large quantities of rich 
manure, but he wants them to act quickly. The nurseryman who 
sets out a block of trees which will occupy the ground for three, 
four, or five years, may want a "lasting manure," but such is not 
the case with the gardener who grows crops which he takes off the 
land in a few months. As long as he continues to use horse or 
cow -manure freely, he need not trouble himself to get a slow or 
lasting manure. His great aim should be to make the manure as 
active and available as possible. And this is especially the case if 
he occupies clayey or loamy land. On sandy land the manure will 
decompose more rapidly and act quicker. 

"There are many facts," said the Doctor, "that show that an 
artificial application ol' water is equivalent to an application of 
manure. It has been shown that market-gardeners find it neces- 
sary to apply a much larger amount of plant food to the soil than 
the crops can take up. This they have to do year after year. And 
it may well be that, when a supply of water can be had at slight 
cost, it will be cheaper to irrigate the land, or water the plants, 
rather than to furnish such an excess of manure, as is now found 
necessary. Even with ordinary farm-crops, we know that they feel 
the effects of drouth far less on rich land than on poor land. In 



296 TALKS ON MANURES. 

other words, a liberal supply of plant-food enables the crops to 
flourish with less water; and, on the other hand, a greater supply 
of water will enable the crops to flourish with a less supply of 
plant-food. The market-gardeners should look into this question 
of irrigation. 

MANURES FOR SEED-GROWING FARMS. 

In growing garden and vegetable seeds, much labor is neces- 
sarily employed per acre, and consequently it is of great import- 
ance to produce a good yield. The best and cleanest land is neces- 
sary to start with, and then manures must be appropriately and 
freely used. 

" But not too freely," said the Doctor, " for I am told it is quite 
possible to have land too rich for seed-growing." 

It is not often that the land is too rich. Still, it may well be that 
for some crops too much stable-manure is used. But in nine cases 
out of ten, when such manure gives too much growth and too little 
or too poor seed, the trouble is in the quality of the manure. It 
contains too much carbonaceous matter. In other words, it is so 
poor in nitrogen and phosphoric acid, that an excessive quantity 
has to be used. 

The remedy consists in making richer manures and using a less 
quantity, or use half the quantity of stable-manure, and apply the 
rectified or prepared Peruvian guano, at the rate of 300 lbs. or 400 
lbs. per acre, or say 200 lbs. superphosphate and 200 lbs. nitrate of 
soda per acre. 

Where it is very important to have the seeds ripen early, a lib- 
eral dressing, say 400 lbs. per acre, of superphosphate of lime, will 
be likely to prove beneficial. 

MANURE FOR PRIVATE GARDENS. 

I once had a small garden in the city, and having no manure, I 
depended entirely on thorough cultivation and artificial fertilizers, 
such as superphosphate and sulphate of ammonia. It was culti- 
vated not for profit, but for pleasure, but I never saw a more pro- 
ductive piece of land. I had in almost every case two crops a year 
on the same land, and on some plots three crops. No manure was 
used, except the superphosphate and sulphate of ammonia, and 
coal and wood ashes from the house. 

About 5 lbs. of sulphate of ammonia was sown broadcast to the 
square rod, or worked into the soil very thoroughly in the rows 
where the seed was to be sown. Superphosphate was applied at 
the same rate, but instead of sowing it broadcast, I aimed to get it 
as near the seed or the roots of plants as possible. 



MANURES FOR GARDENS AND ORCHARDS. 297 

Half a teaspoonful of the mixture, consisting of equal parts of 
superphosphate and sulphate of ammonia, stirred into a large three 
gallon can of water, and sprinkled on to a bed of verbenas, seemed 
to have a remarkable effect on the size and brilliancy of the flowers. 

Even to this day, although I have a good supply of rich barn- 
yard-manure, I do not like to be without some good artificial ma- 
nure for the garden. 

MANURE FOR HOT-BEDS. 
The best manure for hot-beds is horse or sheep-dung that has 
been used as bedding for pigs. 
When fresh stable-manure is used, great pains should be taken to 
^ save all the urine. In other words, you want the horse-dung 
thoroughly saturated with urine. 

The heat is produced principally from the carbon in the manure 
and straw, but you need active nitrogenous matter to start the fire. 
And the richer the manure is in nitrogenous matter, and the more 
thoroughly this is distributed through the manure, the more readily 
will it ferment. There is also another advantage in having rich 
manure, or manure well saturated with urine. You can make the 
heap more compact. Poor manure has to be made in a loose heap, 
or it will not ferment ; but such manure as we are talking about 
can be trodden down quite firm, and still ferment rapid enough to 
give out the necessary heat, and this compact heap will continue 
to ferment longer and give out a steadier heat, than the loose heap 
of poor manure. 

MANURE FOR NURSERYMEN. 

Our successful nurserymen purchase large quantities of stable 
and other manures from the cities, drawing it as fast as it is made, 
and putting it in piles until wanted. They usually turn the piles 
once or twice, and often three times. This favors fermentation, 
greatly reducing it in bulk, and rendering the manure much more 
soluble and active. It also makes the manure in the heap more 
uniform in quality. 

Messrs. Ellwanger & Barry tell me that they often ferment the 
manure that they draw from the stables in the city, and make it so 
fine and rich, that they get but one load of rotted manure from 
three loads as drawn from the stables. For some crops, they use 
at least 20 loads of this rotted manure per acre, and they esti- 
mate that each load of this rotted manure costs at least $5.00. 

H. E. Hooker places the cost of manure equally high, but seems 
willing to use all he can get, and does not think we can profitably 
employ artificial manures as a substitute. 



298 TALKS ON MANURES. 

In this I agree with him. But while I should not expect arti- 
ficial manures, when used alone, to prove as cheap or as valuable 
as stable-manure at present prices, I think it may well be that 
a little nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, and superphosphate 
of lime, or dissolved Peruvian guano, might be used as an auxil- 
iary manure to great advantage. 

Mr. H. E. Hooker, once sowed, at my suggestion, some sulphate 
of ammonia and superphosphate on part of a block of nursery 
trees, and he could not perceive that these manures did any good, 
Ellwanger & Barry also tried them, and reported the same nega- 
tive result. This was several years ago, and I do not think any 
similar experiments have been made since. 

*' And yet," said the Deacon, " you used these self same manures 
on farm-crops, and they greatly increased the growth." 

" There are several reasons," said the Doctor, " why these ma- 
nures may have failed to produce any marked effect on the nursery 
trees. In the first place, there was considerable prejudice against 
them, and the nurserymen would hardly feel like relying on these 
manures alone. They probably sowed them on land already well 
manured ; and I think they sowed them too late in the season. I 
should like to see them fairly tried." 

So would I. It seems to me that nitrate of soda, and superphos- 
phate, or dissolved Peruvian guano, could be used with very great 
advantage and profit by the nurserymen. Of course, it would 
hardly be safe to depend upon them alone. They should be used 
either in connection with stable-manure, or on land that had pre- 
viously been frequently dressed with stable-manure. 

MANURE FOR FRUIT-GROWERS. 

How to keep up tiie fertility of our apple-orchards, is becoming 
an important question, and is attracting considerable attention. 

There are two methods generally recommended — I dare not say 
generally practised. The one, is to keep the orchard in bare-fal- 
low ; the other, to keep it in grass, and top-dress with manure, and 
either eat the grass off on the land with sheep and pigs, or else 
mow it frequently, and let the grass rot on the surface, for mulch 
and manure. 

" You are speaking now," said the Deacon, " of bearing apple- 
orchards. No one recommends keeping a young orchard in grass. 
We all know that young apple trees do far better when the land is 
occupied with corn, potatoes, beans, or some other crop, which can 
be cultivated, than they do on land occupied with wheat, barley, 
oats, rye, buckwheat, or grass and clover. And even with bearing 



MANURES FOIt GARDENS AND ORCHARDS. 299 

peach trees, I have seen a wonderful difference in an orchard, half 
of which was cultivated with corn, and the other half sown with 
wheat. The trees in the wheat were sickly-looking, and bore a 
small crop of inferior fruit, while the trees in the corn, grew vigor- 
ously and bore a fine crop of fruit. And the increased value of 
the crop of peaches on the cultivated land was far more than we 
can ever hope to get from a crop of wheat." 

" And yet," said the Doctor, *' the crop of corn on the cultivated 
half of the peach-orchard removed far more plant-food from the 
soil, than the crop of wheat. And so it is evident that the differ- 
ence is not due wholly to the supply of manure in the surface-soil. 
It may well be that the cultivation which the corn received favored 
the decomposition of organic matter in the soil, and the formation 
of nitrates, and when the rain came, it would penetrate deeper into 
the loose soil than on the adjoining land occupied with wheat. 
The rain would carry the nitrogen down to the roots of the peach 
trees, and this will account for the dark green color of the leaves 
on the cultivated land, and the yellow, sickly-looking leaves on 
the trees among the wheat. 

HEN-MANURE, AND WHAT TO DO WITH IT. 

A bushel of corn fed to a hen would give no more nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid, and potash, in the shape of manure, than a bushel 
of corn fed to a pig. The manure from the pig, however, taking 
the urine and solid excrement together, contain 82 per cent of 
water, while that from the hen contains only 56 per cent of water. 
Moreover, hens pick up worms and insects, and their food in such 
case would contain more nitrogen than the usual food of pigs, and 
the manure would be correspondingly richer in nitrogen. Hence 
it happens that 100 lbs. of dry hen-manure would usually be richer 
in nitrogen than 100 lbs. of dry pig-manure. But feed pigs on 
peas, and hens on corn, and the dry pig-manure would be much 
richer in nitrogen than the dry hen-manure. The value of the 
manure, other things being equal, depends on the food and not on 
the animal. 

Let no mnn think he is going to make his farm any richer by 
keeping hens, ducks, and geese, than he will by keeping sheep, 
pigs, and horses. 

"Why is it, then," asked the Deacon, "that hen-dung proves 
euch a valuable manure. I would rather have a hundred lbs. of 
hen-dung than half a ton of barnyard-manure ? " 

" And I presume you are right," said I, " but you must recollect 
that your hen-manure is kept until it is almost chemically dry. Let 



300 TALKS ON MANURES. 

US figure up what the half ton of manure and the 100 lbs. of hen- 
manure would contain. Here are the figures, side by side : 



Water (estimated) 
Organic Matter.... 
Ash 



Nitrogen 

Potash . 

Lime 

Phosphoric acid. 



100 lbs. dry 
Ben- Ma- 
nure. 


Ealf ton 

Cow-Dung 

with straw. 


Iv! lbs. 
51 " 
37 " 


775 lbs. 
203 " 
22 " 


ft:: 
r:: 


3 " 



I would, myself, far rather have 100 lbs. of your dry hen-manure 
than half a ton of your farmyard -manure. Your hens are fed on 
richer food than your cows. The 100 lbs. of hen-manure, too, 
would act much more rapidly than the half ton of cow-manure. 
It would probably do twice as much good — possibly three or four 
times as much good, on the first crop, as the cow-manure. The ni- 
trogen, being obtained from richer and more digestible food, is in 
a much more active and available condition than the nitrogen in 
the cow-dung. 

" If you go on," said the Deacon, " I think you will prove that I 
am right." 

" I have never doubted," said I, " the great value of hen-dung, as 
compared with barnyard-manure. And all I wish to show is, that, 
notwithstanding its acknowledged value, the fact remains that a 
given quantity of the same kind of food will give no greater 
amount of fertilizing matter when fed to a hen than if fed to a pig." 

I want those farmers who find so much benefit from an applica- 
tion of hen-manure, ashes, and plaster, to their corn and potatoes, 
to feel that if they would keep better cows, sheep, and pigs, and 
feed them better, they would get good pay for their feed, and the 
manure would enable them to grow larger crops. 

While we have been talking, the Deacon was looking over the 
tables. (See Appendix.) " I see," said he, " that wheat and rye 
contain more nitrogen than hen-manure, but less potash and phos- 
phoric acid." 

" This is true," said I, " but the way to compare them, in order 
to see the effect of passing the wheat through the hen, is to look at 
the composition of the air-dried hen -dung. The fresh hen-dung, 
according to the table, contains 56 per cent of water, while wheat 
contains less than 14^ per cent." 

Let us compare the composition of 1,000 lbs. air-dried hen-dung 
with 1,000 lbs. of air-dried wheat and rye, and also with bran, 
malt-combs, etc. 



MANURES FOR GARDENS AND ORCHARDS. 301 

Phosphoric 

Nitrogen. Potash. Acid. 

Wheat ' 20.8 5.3 7.9 

Wheat Bran 22.4 14.3 27.3 

Rye 17.6 5.6 8.4 

RyeBran.V 23.2 19.3 34.3 

Buckwheat 14.4 2.7 5.7 

Buckwheat Bran 27.2 11.2 12.5 

Malt-roots 36.8 20.6 18.0 

Air-dry Hen-dung 32.6 17.0 30.8 

" That table," said the Doctor, " is well worth studying. You 
see, that when wheat is put through the process of milling, the 
miller takes out as much of the starch and gluten as he wants, and 
leaves you a product (bran), richer in phosphoric acid, potash, and 
nitrogen, than you gave him." 

" And the same is true," continued the Doctor, " of the hen. You 
gave her 2,000 grains of wheat, containing 41.6 grains of nitrogen. 
She puts this through the mill, together with some ashes, and 
bones, that she picks up, and she takes out all the starch and fat, 
and nitrogen, and phosphate of lime, that she needs to sus- 
tain life, and to produce flesh, bones, feathers, and eggs, and 
leaves you 1,000 grains of manure containing 32.6 grains of nitro- 
gen, 17.0 grains of potash, and 30.8 grains of phosphoric acid. I 
do not say," continued the Doctor, " that it takes exactly 2,000 
grains of wheat to make 1,000 grains of dry manure. I merely 
give these figures to enable the Deacon to understand why 1,000 
lbs. of hen-dung is worth more for manure than 1,000 lbs. of 
wheat." 

" I must admit," said the Deacon, " that I always have been trou- 
bled to understand why wheat-bran was worth more for manure 
than the wheat itself. I see now — it is because there is less of it. 
It is for the same reason that boiled cider is richer than the cider 
from which it is made. The cider has lost water, and the bran has 
lost starch. What is left is richer in nitrogen, and potash, and 
phosphoric acid. And so it is with manure. The animals take 
out of the food the starch and fat, and leave the manure richer in 
nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash." 

" Exactly," said I, " Mr. Lawes found by actual experiment, that 
if you feed 500 lbs. of barley-meal to a pig, containing 420 lbs. of 
dry substance, you get only 70 lbs. of dry substance in the manure. 
Of the 420 lbs. of dry substance, 276-.2 lbs. are used to support res- 
piration, etc. ; 73.8 lbs. are found in the increase of the pig, and 70 
lbs. in the manure." 

The food contains 52 lbs. of nitrogenous matter ; the increase of 
pig contains 7 lbs., and consequently, if there is no loss, the ma- 



302 TALKS ON MANURES. 

nure should contain 45 lbs. of nitrogenous substance=:to 7.14 lbs. 
of nitrogen. 

" In other words," said the Doctor,' " the 70 lbs. of dry liquid and 
solid pig-manure contains 7.14 lbs. of nitrogen, or 100 lbs. would 
contain 10.2 lbs. of nitrogen, which is more nitrogen than we now 
get in the very best samples of Peruvian guano." 

" And thus it will be seen," said 1, " that though corn-fed pigs, 
leaving out the bedding and water, produce a very small quantity 
of manure, it is exceedingly rich." 

The table from which these facts were obtained, will be found in 
the Appendix—pages 342-3. 



CHAPTEK XXXVl. 
DIFFERENT KINDS OF MANURE. 

COW-MANURE, AND HOW TO USE IT. 

" It will do more good if fermented," said a German farmer in 
the neighborhood, who is noted for raising good crops of cabbage, 
'' but I like hog-manure better than cow-dung. The right way is 
to mix the hog-manure, cow-dung, and horse-manure together." 

"]So doubt about that," said I, "but when you have a good 
many cows, and few other animals, how would you manage the 
manure ? " 

" I would gather leaves and swamp-muck, and use them for bed- 
ding the cows and pigs. Leaves make splendid bedding, and they 
make rich manure, and the cow-dung and leaves, when made into 
a pile, will ferment readily, and make grand manure for — any- 
thing. I only wish I had all I could use." 

There is no question but what cow-manure is better if fermented, 
but it is not always convenient to pile it during the winter in such 
a way that it will not freeze. And in this case it may be the better 
plan to draw it out on to the land, as opportunity offers. 

" I have heard," said Charley, " that pig-manure was not good 
for cabbage, it produces ' fingers and toes,' or club-foot." 

Possibly such is the case when there is a predisposition to the 
disease, but our German friend says he has never found any ill- 
effects from its use. 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF MANURE. 303 

"Cows," said the Doctor, "when giving a large quantity of 
milk, make rather poor manure. The manure loses what the milk 
takes from the food." 

" We have shown what that loss is," said I. " It amounts to less 
than I think is generally supposed. And in the winter, when the 
cows are dry, the manure would be as rich as from oxen, provided 
both were fed alike. See Appendix, page 342. It will there be 
seen that oxen take out only 4.1 lbs. of nitrogen from 100 lbs. of 
nitrogen consumed in the food. In other words, provided there 
is no loss, we should get in the liquid and solid excrements of the 
ox and dry cow 95.9 per cent, of the nitrogen furnished in the 
food, and a still higher per cent of the mineral matter. 

SHEEP-MANURE. 

According to Prof. WolflTs table of analyses, sheep-manure, both 
solid and liquid, contain less water than the manure from horses, 
cows, or swine. With the exception of swine, the solid dung is 
also the richest in nitrogen, while the urine of sheep is pre- 
eminently rich in nitrogen and potash. 

These facts are in accordance with the general opinions of farm- 
ers. Sheep-manure is considered, next to hen-manure, the most 
valuable manure made on the farm. 

I do not think we have any satisfactory evidence to prove that 
3 tons of clover-hay and a ton of corn fed to a lot of fattening- 
sheep will afford a quantity of manure containing anymore plant- 
food than the same kind and amount of food fed to a lot of fat- 
tening-cattle. The experiments of Lawes & Gilbert indicate that 
if there is any difference it is in favor of the ox. See Appendix, 
page 343. But it may well be that it is much easier to save the 
manure from the sheep than from the cattle. And so, practically, 
Bheep may be better manure-makers than cattle— for the simple 
reason that less of the urine is lost. 

"As a rule," said the Doctor, "the dung of sheep contains far 
less water than the dung of cattle, though when you slop your 
breeding ewes to make them give more milk, the dung differs but 
little in appearance from that of cows. Ordinarily, however, sheep- 
dung is light and dry, and, like horse-dung, will ferment much 
more rapidly than cow or pig-dung. In piling manure in the win- 
ter or spring, special pains should be used to mix the sheep and 
horse-manure with the cow and pig-manure. And it may be re- 
marked that for any crop or for any purpose where stable-manure 
is deemed desirable, sheep-manure would be a better substitute 
than cow or pig-manure." 



304 TALKS ON MANURES. 



MANURE FROM SWINE. 



The dry matter of hog-manure/especially the urine, is rich in 
nitrogen, but it is mixed with such a large quantity of water that 
a ton of hog-manure, as it is usually found in the pen, is less valu- 
able than a ton of horse or sheep-manure, and only a little more 
valuable than a ton of cow-manure. 

As I have before said, my own plan is to let the store-hogs sleep 
in a basement-cellar, and bed them with horse and sheep-manure. 
I have this winter over 50 sows under the horse-stable, and the 
manure from 8 horses keeps them dry and comfortable, and we 
are not specially lavish with straw in bedding the horses. 

During the summer we aim to keep the hogs out in the pastures 
and orchards as much as possible. This is not only good for the 
health of the pigs, but saves labor and straw in the management 
of the manure. It goes directly to the land. The pigs are good 
grazers and distribute the manure as evenly over the land as sheep 
— in fact, during hot weather, sheep are even more inclined to hud- 
dle together under the trees, and by the side of the fence, than 
pigs. This is particularly the case with the larger breeds of sheep. 

In the winter it is not a difficult matter to save all th^ liquid 
and solid excrements from pigs, provided the pens are dry and no 
water comes in from the rain and snow. As pigs are often man- 
aged, this is the real difficulty. Pigs void an enormous quantity 
of water, especially when fed on slops from the house, whey, etc. If 
they are kept in a pen with a separate feeding and sleeping apart- 
ment, both should be under cover, and the feeding apartment may 
be kept covered a foot or so thick with the soiled bedding from 
the sleeping apartment. When the pigs get up in a morning, they 
will go into the feeding apartment, and the liquid will be dis- 
charged on the mass of manure, straw, etc. 

"Dried muck," said the Deacon, "comes in very handy about a 
pig-pen, for absorbing the liquid." 

" Yes," said I, " and even dry earth can be used to great advan- 
tage, not merely to absorb the liquid, but to keep the pens sweet 
and healthy. The three chief points in saving manure from pigs 
are: 1, To have the pens under cover; 2, to keep the feeding 
apartment or yard covered with a thick mass of strawy manure 
and refuse of any kind, and 3, to scatter plenty of dry earth or 
dry muck on the floor of the sleeping apartment, and on top of 
the manure in the feeding apartment." 

"You feed most of your pigs," said the Deacon, " out of doors 
in the yard, and they sleep in the pens or basement cellars, and it 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF MAKUEE. 



305 



seems to me to be a good plan, as they get more fresh air and ex- 
ercise than if confined." 

" We do not lose much manure," said I, " by feeding in the yards. 
You let a dozen pigs sleep in a pen all night, and as soon as they 
hear you putting the food in the troughs outside, they come to the 
door of the pen, and there discharge the liquid and solid excre- 
ments on the mass of manure left there on purpose to receive and 
absorb them. I am well aware that as pigs are often managed, we 
lose at least half the value of their manure, but there is no neces- 
sity for this. A little care and thought will save nearly the whole 
of it. 

BUYING MANURE BY MEASURE OR WEIGHT. 

The Deacon and I have just been weighing a bushel of different 
kinds of manure made on the farm. We made two weighings of 
each kind, one thrown in loose, and the other pressed down firm. 
The following is the result : 

WEIGHT OF MANURE PER BUSHEL, AND PER LOAD OF 50 BUSHELS. 



No. 



1. 
2. 
3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 
16. 



KIND AND CONDITION OF MANURES. 






Fresh horse-manure free from straw 

«.» »' " '• " '• pressed 

Fresh horse-manure, as used for bedding pigs 

u u 'I. " *' " pressed. 
Horse-manure from pig cellar 

«' 't " " " pressed 

Pig-manure 

" "• pressed 

Pig-manure and dr}' earth 

Slieep-manure from open shed 

'' '« "• " " pressed 

Sheep-manure from closed shed 

!■- " '^ " " pressed... 

Fresh cow-dung, free from straw 

Hen-manure 

»' " pressed - • 



lbs. 
3714 
55 
28 
46 
50 
72 
57 
75 
98 
42 
65 






lbs. 
1875 
2750 
1400 
2300 
2500 
3600 
2850 
3750 
4900 
2100 
3250 
1400 
1900 
4350 
1700 



*' In buying manure," said the Deacon, *' it makes quite a differ- 
ence whether the load is trod down solid or thrown loosely into the 
box. A load of fresh horse-manure, when trod down, weighs half 
as much again as when thrown in loose." 

" A load of horse-manure," said Charley, " after it has been used 
for bedding pigs, weighs 3,600 lbs., and only 2,300 lbs. when it is 
thrown into the pens, and I suppose a ton of the * double-worked ' 
manure is fully as valuable as a ton of the fresh horse-manure. If 
so, 15 ' loads' of the pig-pen manure is equal to 24 'loads' of the 
Btable-manure." 



306 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



"A ton of fresh liorse-manure," said the Doctor, "contains 
about 9 lbs. of nitrogen ; a ton of fresh cow-dung about 6 lbs.; a 
ton of fresh sheep-dung, 11 lbs., and a ton of fresh pig-manure, 12 
lbs. But if the Deacon and you weighed correctly, a ' load ' or 
cord of cow-manure would contain more nitrogen than a load of 
pressed horse-manure. The figures are as follows : 

A load of 50 bushels of fresh horse-dung, pressed 

and free from straw contains 12.37 lbs. nitrogen. 

A load of fresh cow-dung 13.05 *' " 

" " sheep " 10.45 " " 

« pig " 22.50 " 

" These figures," said I, " show how necessary it is to look at 
this subject in all its aspects. If I was buying manures by weighty 
I would much prefer a ton of sheep-manure, if it had been made 
under cover, to any other manure except hen-dung, especially 
if it contained all the urine from the sheep. But if buying manure 
by the load or cord, that from a covered pig-pen would be prefer- 
able to any other." 

LIQUID MANURE ON THE FARM. 

I have never had any personal experience in the use of liquid 
manure to any crop except grass. At Rothamsted, Mr. Lawes used 
to draw out the liquid manure in a water-cart, and distribute it 
on grass land. 

"What we want to know," said the Deacon, "is whether the 
liquid from our barn-yards will pay to draw out. If it will, the 
proper method of using it can be left to our ingenuity. " 

According to Prof. Wolfi", a ton of urine from horses, cows, 
sheep, and swine, contains the following amounts of nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid, and potash, and, for the sake of comparison, I 
give the composition of drainage from the barn-yard, and also of 
fresh dung of the different animals : 

TABLE SHOWrNG THB AMOUNT OP NITROGEN, PHOSPHORIC ACID, AND POTASH, 

IN ONE TON OP THE FRESH DUNG AND PRESH URINE OP DIFFERENT 

ANIMALS, AND ALSO OP THE DRAINAGE OP THE BARN-YARD. 





1 TON FRESH DUNG. 


1 TON FRESH URINE. 




Nitro- 
gen. 


Phos- 
phoric 
acid. 


Potash. 


Nitro- 
gen. 


Phos- 
phoric 
acid. 


PotasJi. 


Horse 


8.8 
5.8 
11.0 
12.0 
9.4 


lbs. 
7.0 
3 4 
6.2 
8.2 
6.2 


lbs. 
7.0 
2.0 
3.0 
5.2 
4.3 


lbs. 
31.0 
11.6 
39.0 

8.6 
22.5 

3.0 


lbs. 

0.2 
1.4 
0.4 
0.2 


lbs. 
30.0 


Cow 


9.8 


Sheep 


45.2 


Swine . . 


16.6 


Mean 


25.4 


Drainage of barn-yard 


9.8 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF MANURE. 307 

The drainage from a barn-yard, it will be seen, contains a little 
more than half as much nitrogen as cow-dung ; and it is probable 
that the nitrogen in the liquid is in a much more available condi- 
tion than that in the dung. It contains, also, nearly five times as 
much potash as the dung. It would seem, therefore, that with 
proper arrangements for pumping and distributing, this liquid 
could be drawn a short distance with profit. 

But whether it will or will not pay to cart away the drainage, it 
is obviously to our interest to prevent, as far as possible, any of 
the liquid from running to waste. 

It is of still greater importance to guard against any loss of 
urine. It will be seen that, on the average, a ton of the urine of 
our domestic animals contains more than twice as much nitrogen 
as a ton of the dung. 

Where straw, leaves, swamp-muck, or other absorbent materials 
are not sufficiently abundant to prevent any loss of urine, means 
should be used to drain it into a tank so located that the liquid 
can either be pumped back on to the manure when needed, or 
drawn away to the land. 

" I do not see," said the Deacon, " why horse and sheep-urine 
should contain so much more nitrogen and potash than that from 
the cow and pig." 

" The figures given by Prof. Wolfi^," said I, " are general aver- 
ages. The composition of the urine varies greatly. The richer the 
food in digestible nitrogenous matter, the more nitrogen will there 
be in the dry m.atter of the urine. And, other things being equal, 
the less water the animal drinks, the richer will the urine be in 
nitrogen. The urine from a sheep fed solely on turnips would 
contain little or no more nitrogen than the urine of a cow fed on 
turnips. An ox or a dry cow fed on grass would probably void 
no more nor no poorer urine than a horse fed on grass. The urine 
that Mr. Lawes drew out in a cart on to his grass-land was made 
by sheep that had one lb. each of oil-cake per day, and one R). of 
chafied clover-hay, and all the turnips they would eat. They voided 
a large quantity of urine, but as the food was rich in nitrogen, the 
urine was doubtless nearly or quite as rich as that analyzed by 
Prof. Wolff, though that probably contained less water. 

If I was going to draw out liquid manure, I should be very care- 
ful to spout all the buildings, and keep the animals and manure as 
much under cover as possible, and also feed food rich in nitrogen. 
In such circumstances, it would doubtless pay to draw the urine 
full as well as to draw the solid manure. 



308 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



NIGHTSOIL AND SEWAGE. 

The composition of human excrements, as compared with the 
mean composition of the excrements from horses, cows, sheep, and 
swine, so far as the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash are con- 
cerned, is as follows : 

TABLE SHOWING THE AMOUNT OF NITROGEN, PHOSPHORIC ACID, AND POTASH, 

IN ONE TON OP FRESH HUMAN EXCREMENTS, AND IN ONE TON OF FRESH 

EXCREMENTS FROM HORSES, COWS, SHEEP, AND SWINE. 





SOLIDS. 


URINE. 


One ton (2000 lbs). 


Nitro- 
gen. 


Phos- 
phoric 
acid. 


Potash. 


Nitro- 
gen. 


Phos- 

phoi'ic 

acid. 


Potash. 


Human 


20.0 lbs. 


21.8 lbs. 


5.0 lbs. 


12.0 lbs. 


3.7 lbs. 


4.0 lbs. 


Mean of horse, cow, slieep, 
and swine 


9.4 '' 


6.2 " 


4.3 " 


22.5 " 


0.4 " 


25.4 " 



One ton of fresh faeces contains more than twice as much nitro- 
gen, and more than three times as much phosphoric acid, as a ton 
of fresh mixed animal-dung. The nitrogen, too, is probably in a 
more available condition than that in common barnyard-dung ; 
and we should not be far wrong in estimating 1 ton of faeces equal 
to 2i tons of ordinary dung, or about equal in value to carefully 
preserved manure from liberally-fed sheep, swine, and fattening 
cattle. 

" It is an unpleasant job," said the Deacon, " but it pays well to 
empty the vaults at least twice a year." 

" If farmers," said the Doctor, " would only throw into the vaults 
from time to time some dry earth or coal ashes, the contents of 
the vaults could be removed without any disagreeable smell." 

" That is so," said I, " and even where a vault has been shame- 
fully neglected, and is full of offensive matter, it can be cleaned 
out without difficulty and without smell. I have cleaned out a 
large vault in an hour. "We were drawing manure from the yards 
with three teams and piling it in the field. We brought back a load 
of sand and threw half of it into the vault, and put the other half 
on one side, to be used as required. The sand and faeces were then, 
with a long-handled shovel, thrown into the wagon, and drawn to 
the pile of manure in the field, and thrown on to the pile, not more 
than two or three inches thick. The team brought back a load of 
sand, and so we continued until the work was done. Sand or dry 
earth is cheap, and we used all that was necessary to prevent the 
escape of any unpleasant gases, and to keep the material from ad- 
hering to the shovels or the wagon. 

"Human urine," said the Doctor, "is richer in phosphoric acid, 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF MANURE. 309 

but much poorer in nitrogen and potash than the urine from 
horses, cows, sheep, and swine." 

" Some years ago," said the Deacon, " Mr. H. E. Hooker, of Roch- 
ester, used to draw considerable quantities of urine from the city 
to his farm. It would pay better to draw out the urine from farm 
animals." 

" The figures given above," said I, " showing the composition of 
human excrements, are from Prof. Wolff, and probably are gener- 
ally correct. But, of course, the composition of the excrements 
would vary greatly, according to the food." 

It has been ascertained by Lawes and Gilbert that the amount of 
matter voided by an adult male in the course of a year is— faeces, 
95 lbs.; urine, 1,049 lbs.; total liquid and solid excrements m the 
pure state, 1,144 lbs. These contain : 

Dry substance— faeces, 23* lbs.; urine, 34^ ; total, 581- lbs. 
Mineral matter— faeces, 2i lbs.; urine, 12 ; total, 14i lbs. 
Carbon— faeces, 10 lbs.; urine, 12 ; total 22 lbs. 
Nitrogen— faeces, 1.2 lbs.; urine, 10.8; total, 12 lbs. 
Phosphoric acid— ffeces, 0.7 lbs.; urine, 1.93 ; total, 2.63 lbs. 
Potash— fieces, 0.24 lbs.; urine, 2.01; total, 2.25 lbs. 

The amount of potash is given by Prof. E. Wolff, not by Lawes 
and Gilbert. 

The mixed solid and liquid excrements, in the condition they 
leave the body, contain about 95 per cent of water. It would re- 
quire, therefore, 20 tons of fresh mixed excrements, to make one 
ton of dry nightsoil, or the entire amount voided by a mixed family 
of 43 persons in a year. 

One hundred lbs. ot fresh faeces contain 75 lbs. of water, and 25 
lbs. of dry substance. 

One hundred lbs. of fresh urine contain 96^ lbs. of water, and 
3i lbs. of dry substance. 

One hundred lbs. of the dry substance of the faeces contain 5 lbs. 
of nitrogen, and 5i lbs. of phosphates. 

One hundred lbs. of the dry substance of the urine contain 27 
lbs. of nitrogen, and lOf lbs. of phosphates. 

These figures are from Lawes and Gilbert, and may be taken as 
representing the composition of excrements from moderately well- 
fed persons. 

According to Wolff, a ton of fresh human urine contains 12 lbs. 
of nitrogen. According to Lawes and Gilbert, 18 lbs. 

The liquid carted from the city by Mr. Hooker was from well-fed 
adult males, and would doubtless be fully equal to the figures given 
by Lawes and Gilbert. If we call the nitrogen worth 20 cents a lb., 



310 TALKS ON MANURES. 

and the phosphoric acid (soluble) worth 12^ cents, a ton of such 
urine would be worth, on the land^ $4.06. 

"A ton of the fresh faeces," saidthe Deacon, "at the same esti- 
mate, would be worth (20 lbs. nitrogen, at 20 cents, $4; 21f lbs. 
phosphoric acid, at 12i cents, $2.70), $6.70." 

" Not by a good deal," said the Doctor. " The nitrogen and 
phosphoric acid in the urine are both soluble, and would be imme- 
diately available. But the nitrogen and phosphoric acid in the 
faeces would be mostly insoluble. We cannot estimate the nitrogen 
in the faeces at over 15 cents a lb., and the phosphoric acid at 
5 cents. This would make the value of a ton of fresh faeces, on the 
land, $4.09." 

'* This makes the ton of faeces worth about the same as a ton of 
urine. But I would like to know," said the Deacon, " if you really 
believe we could afford to pay $4 per ton for the stuff delivered on 
the farm ? " 

*' If we could get the genuine article," said the Doctor, "it would 
be worth $4 a ton. But, as a rule, it is mixed with water, r.nd dirt, 
and stones, and bricks, and rubbish of all kinds. Still, it is un- 
questionably a valuable fertilizer." 

*'In the dry-earth closets," said I, "such a large quantity of 

earth has to be used to absorb the liquid, that the material, even i^ 

used several times, is not worth carting any considerable distance. 

Dr. Gilbert found that 5 tons of absolutely dry earth, before usinf, 

contained 16.7 lbs. of nitrogen. 

After being used once, 5 tons of the dry earth contained 24.0 lbs. 

" " " twice, " " " <' " " 36.3 " 

" " " three times,. '' " " " " " 44.6 " 

" '' " four times, .. " " " " " " 54.0 " 

" " " five times,.. " " " '.' " " 61.4 " 

*• " " six times,.... " " " " ♦♦ " 71.6 " 

Dr. Voelcker found that five tons of dry earth gained about 7 lbs. 
of nitrogen, and 11 lbs. of phosphoric acid, each time it was used 
in the closets. If we consider each lb. of nitrogen with the phos- 
phoric acid worth 20 cents a lb., 5 tons of the dry earth, after being 
used once, would be worth $1.46, or less than 30 cents a ton, and 
after it had been used six times, five tons of the material would be 
worth $11.98, or about $2.40 per ton. 

In this calculation I have not reckoned in the value of the nitro- 
gen the soil contained before using. Soil, on a farm, is cheap. 

It is clear from these facts that any earth-closet manure a farmer 
would be likely to purchase in the city has not a very high value. 
It is absurd to talk of making " guano " or any coHcentrated fertil- 
izer out of the material from earth-closets. 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF MANURE. 311 

"It is rather a reflection on our science and practical skill," said 
the Doctor, " but it looks at present as though the only plan to 
adopt in large cities is to use enormous quantities of water and 
wash the stuff into the rivers and oceans for the use of aquatic 
plants and fishes. The nitrogen is not all lost. Some of it comes 
back to us in rains and dews. Of course, there are places where 
the sewage of our cities and villages can be used for irrigating 
purposes. But when water is used as freely as it ought to be used 
for health, the sewage is so extremely poor in fertilizing matter, 
that it must be used in enormous quantities, to furnish a dressing 
equal to an application of 20 tons of stable-manure per acre." 

" If," continued the Doctor, " the sewage is used merely as water 
for irrigating purposes, that is another question. The water itself 
may often be of great benefit. This aspect of the question has not 
received the attention it merits." 

PEEUYIAN GUANO. 

Guano is the manure of birds that live principally on fish. 

Fish contain a high percentage of nitrogen and phosphoric acid, 
and consequently when fish are digested and the carbon is burnt 
out of them, the manure that is left contains a still higher percent- 
age of nitrogen and phosphoric acid than the fish from which it 
was derived. 

Guano is digested fish. If the guano, or the manure from the 
birds living on fish, has been preserved without loss, it would con- 
tain not only a far higher percentage of nitrogen, but the nitrogen 
would be in a much more available condition, and consequently 
be more valuable than the fish from which the guano is made. 

The difference in the value of guano is largely due to a difference 
in the climate and locality in which it is deposited by the birds. 
In a rainless and hot climate, where the bird-drojjpings would dry 
rapidly, little or no putrefaction or f ennentation would take place, 
and there would be no loss of nitrogen from the formation and 
escape of ammonia. 

In a damper climate, or where there was more or less rain, the 
bird droppings would putrefy, and the ammonia would be liable to 
evaporate, or to be leached out by the rain. 

Thirty years ago I saw a quantity of Peruvian guano that con- 
tained more than 18 per cent of nitrogen. It was remarkably light 
colored. You know that the white part of hen-droppings consists 
principally of uric acid,which contains about 33 per cent of nitrogen. 

For many years it was not difficult to find guano containing 13 
per cent of nitrogen, and genuine Peruvian guano was the cheap- 



312 TALKS ON MANURES. 

est and best source of available nitrogen. But latterly, not only 
has the price been advanced, but the quality of the guano has de- 
teriorated. It has contained less nitrogen and more phosphoric 
acid. See the Chapter on " Value of Fertihzers," Page 324. 

SALTS OF AMMONIA AND NITRATE OF SODA. 

"I wish," said the Deacon, *' you would tell us something about 
the ' ammonia-salts ' and nitrate of soda so long used in Lawes and 
Gilbert's experiments. I have never seen any of them." 

" You could not invest a little money to better advantage than 
to send for a few bags of sulphate of ammonia and nitrate cf soda. 
You would then see what they are, and would learn more by using 
them, than I can tell you in a month. You use them just as you 
would common salt. As a rule, the better plan is to sow them 
broadcast, and it is important to distribute them evenly. In sowing 
common salt, if you drop a handful in a place, it will kill the 
plants. And so it is with nitrate of soda or sulphate of ammonia. 
Two or three pounds on a square rod will do good, but if you put 
half of it on a square yard, it will burn up the crop, and the other 
half will be applied in such a small quantity that you will see but 
little effect, and will conclude that it is a humbug. Judging from 
over thirty years' experience, I am safe in saying that not one man 
in ten can be trusted to sow these manures. They should be sown 
with as much care as you sow grass or clover-seed." 

"The best plan," said the Doctor, "is to mix them with sifted 
coal-ashes, or with gypsum, or sifted earth." 

" Perhaps so," said I, " though there is nothing gained by mix- 
ing earth or ashes with them, except in securing a more even dis- 
tribution. And if I w^as going to sow them myself, I would much 
prefer sowing them unmixed. Any man who can sow wheat or 
barley can sow sulphate of ammonia or nitrate of soda." 

" Lawes and Gilbert," said the Deacon, " used sulphate and mu- 
riate of ammonia, and in one or two instances the carbonate of 
ammonia. Which is the best ?" 

" The one that will furnish cmmonia or nitrogen at the cheapest 
rate," said the Doctor, " is the best to use. The muriate of ammo- 
nia contains the most ammonia, but the sulphate, in proportion- 
to the ammonia, is cheaper than the muriate, and far cheaper than 
the carbonate. 

Carbonate of ammonia contains 21^ per cent of ammonia. 
Sulphate of ammonia contains 25i per cent of ammonia=2iy6 
of nitrogen. 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF MANURE. 313 

Muriate of ammonia contains 31 per cent of ammonia=25i of 
nitrogen. 

Nitrate of soda contains I6V5 per cent of nitrogen. 

Nitrate of potasli, 13| per cent of nitrogen. 

From these figures you can ascertain, wlien you know the price 
of each, which is the cheapest source of nitrogen. 

" True," said I, " but it must be understood that these figures re- 
present the composition of a pure article. The commercial sul- 
phate of ammonia, and nitrate of soda, would usually contain 10 
per cent of impurities. Lawes and Gilbert, who have certainly had 
much experience, and doubtless get the best commercial articles, 
state that a mixture of equal parts sulphate and muriate of ammo- 
nia contains about 25 per cent of ammonia. According to the fig- 
ures given by the Doctor, the mixture would contain, if pure, over 
38 per cent of ammonia. In other words, 90 lbs. of the pure article 
contains as much as 100 lbs. of the commercial article." 

As to whether it is better, when you can buy nitrogen at the 
same price in nitrate of soda as you can in sulphate of ammonia, 
to use the one or the other will depend on cii'O'umstances. The 
nitrogen exists as nitric acid in the nitrate of soda, and as ammo- 
nia in the sulphate of ammonia. But there are good reasons to 
believe that before ammonia is used by the plants it is converted 
into nitric acid. If, therefore, we could apply the nitrate just 
where it is wanted by the growing crop, and when there is rain 
enough to thoroughly distribute it through the soil to the depth of 
six or eight inches, there can be little doubt that the nitrate, in 
proportion to the nitrogen, would have a quicker and better efiect 
than the sulphate of ammonia. 

"There is another point to be considered," said the Doctor. 
*' Nitric acid is much more easily washed out of the soil than am- 
monia. More or less of the ammonia enters into chemical com- 
bination with portions of the soil, and may be retained for months 
or years." 

When we use nitrate of soda, we run the risk of losing more or 
less of it from leaching, while if we use ammonia, we lose, for the 
time being, more or less of it from its becoming locked up in in- 
soluble combinations in the soil. For spring crops, such as barley 
or oats, or spring wheat, or for a meadow or lawn, or for top- 
dressing winter-wheat in the spring, the nitrate of soda, provided 
it is sown early enough, or at any time in the spring, just previous 
to a heavy rain, is likely to produce a better effect than the sulphate 
of ammonia. But for sowing in the autumn on winter-wheat the 
ammonia is to be preferred. 
14 



314 TALKS ON MANURES. 

" Saltpetre, or nitrate of potash," said the Deacon, " does not 
contain as much nitrogen as nitrate of soda." 

"And yet," said the Doctor, " if, it could be purchased at the 
same price, it would be the cheaper manure. It contains 46i per 
cent of potash, and on soils, or for crops where potash is needed, 
we may sometimes be able to purchase saltpetre to advantage." 

" If I could come across a lot of damaged saltpetre," said I, 
" that could begot for what it is worth as manure, I should like to 
try it on my apple trees — one row with nitrate of soda, and one row 
with nitrate of potash. When we apply manure to apple trees, the 
ammonia, phosphoric acid, and potash, are largely retained in the 
first few inches of surface-soil, and the deeper roots get hold of 
only those portions which leach through the upper layer of earth. 
Nitric acid, however, is easily washed down into the subsoil, and 
would soon reach all the roots of the trees," 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 
BONE-DUST AND SUPERPHOSPHATE OF LIME. 

Bone-dust is often spoken of as a phosphatic manure, and it has 
been supposed that the astonishing effect bone-dust sometimes pro- 
duces on old pasture-laud, is due to its furnishing phosphoric acid 
to the soil. 

But it must be remembered that bone-dust furnishes nitrogen 
as well as phosphoric acid, and we are not warranted in ascribing 
the good effect of bones to phosphoric acid alone. 

Bones differ considerably in composition. They consist essen- 
tially of gelatine and phosphate of lime. Bones from young ani- 
mals, and the soft porous parts of all bones, contain more gelatine 
than the solid parts, or the bones from older animals. On the aver- 
age, 1,000 lbs. of good commercial bone-dust contains 38 lbs. of 
nitrogen. 

On the old dairy farms of Cheshire, where bone-dust produced 
such marked improvement in the quantity and quality of the pas- 
tures and meadows, it was usual to apply from 4,000 to 5,000 lbs. 
per acre, and often more. In other words, a dressing of bone-dust 



BONE-DFST AND SUPERPHOSPHATE OF LIME. 315 

frequently contained 200 lbs. of nitrogen per acre — equal to 20 or 
25 tons of barn-yard manure. 

"It has been supposed," said the Doctor, ** that owing to the 
removal of so much phosphoric acid in the cheese sold from the 
farm, that the dairy pastures of Cheshire had been exhausted of 
phosphoric acid, and that the wonderful benefits following an ap- 
plication of bone-dust to these pastures, was due to its supplying 
phosphoric acid." 

" I do not doubt," said I, " the value of phosphoric acid when 
applied in connection with nitrogen to old pasture lands, but I 
contend that the experience of the Cheshire dairymen with bone- 
dust is no positive proof that their soils were particularly deficient 
in phosphoric acid. There are many instances given where the 
gelatine of the bones, alone, proved of great value to the grass. 
And I think it will be found that the Cheshire dairymen do not find 
as much benefit from superphosphate as they did from bone-dust. 
And the reason is, that the latter, in addition to the phosphoric 
acid, furnished a liberal dressing of nitrogen. Futhermore, it is 
not true that dairying specially robs the soil of phosphoric acid. 
Take one of these old dairy farms in Cheshire, where a dressing of 
bone-dust, according to a writer in the Journal of the Royal Agri- 
cultural Society, has caused ' a miserable covering of pink grass, 
rushes, and a variety of other noxious weeds, to give place to the 
most luxuriant herbage of wild clover, trefoil, and other succulent 
and nutritious grasses.' It is evident from this description of the 
pastures before the bones were used, that it would take at least 
three acres to keep a cow for a year. 

"I have known," says the same writer quoted above, "many a 
poor, honest, but half broken-hearted man raised from poverty to 
comparative independence, and many a sinking family saved from 
inevitable ruin by the help of this wonderful manure." And this 
writer not only spoke from observation and experience, but he 
showed his faith by his works, for he tells us that he had paid 
nearly $50,000 for this manure. 

Now, on one of these poor dairy farms, where it required 3 acres 
to keep a cow, and where the grass was of poor quality, it is not 
probable that the cows produced over 250 lbs. of cheese in a year. 
One thousand pounds of cheese contains, on the average, about 
45^ lbs. of nitrogen ; 2^ lbs. of potash, and IH lbs. of phosphoric 
acid. From this it follows, if 250 lbs. of cheese are sold annually 
from three acres of pasture, less than one lb. of phosphoric acid 
per acre is exported from the farm in the cheese. 

One ton of timothy-hay contains nearly 14^^ lbs. of phosphoric 



316 TALKS ON MANUKKS. 

acid. And so a farmer who raises a ton of timothy-hay per acre, 
and sells it, sends off as much phosphoric acid in one year as such 
a Cheshire dairyman as I have alluded to did in fourteen years. 

What the dairymen want, and what farmers generally want, is 
nitrogen and phosphoric acid. Bone-dust furnishes both, and this 
was the reason of its wonderful effects. 

It does not follow from this, that bone-dust is the cheapest and 
best manure we can use. It is an old and popular manure, and 
usually commands a good price. It sells for all it is worth. A 
dozen years ago, I bought ten tons of bone-dust at $18 per ton. I 
have offered $25 per ton since for a similar lot, but the manufac- 
turers find a market in New York for all they can make. 



Bone-dust, besides nitrogen, contains about 23 per cent of 
phosphoric acid. 

*' That does not give me," said the Deacon, " any idea of its 
value." 

" Let us put it in another shape, then," said I. " One ton of good 
bone-dust contains about as much nitrogen as 8^ tons of fresh 
stable-manure, and as much phosphoric acid as 110 tons of fresh 
stable-manure. But one ton of manure contains more potash than 
5 tons of bone-dust. 



Bone-dust, like barnyard-manure, does not immediately yield 
up its nitrogen and phosphoric acid to plants. The bone phosphate 
of lime is insoluble in water, and but very slightly soluble in 
water containing carbonic acid. The gelatine of the bones would 
soon decompose in a moist, porous, warm soil, provided it was 
not protected by the oil and b}^ the hard matter of the bones. 
Steaming, by removing the oil, removes one of the hindrances to 
decomposition. Reducing the bones as fine as possible is another 
means of increasing their availability. 

Another good method of increasing the availability of bone-dust 
is to mix it with barnyard-manure, and let both ferment together 
in a heap. I am inclined to think this the best, simplest, and 
most economical method of rendering bone-dust available. The 
bone-dust causes the heap of manure to ferment more readily, and 
the fermentation of the manure softens the bones. Both the ma- 
nure and the bones are improved and rendered richer and more 
available by the process. 

Another method of increasing the availability of bone-dust is by 
mixing it with sulphuric acid. 



BONE-DUST AND SUPEKPHOSPHATE OF LIME. 317 

The phosphate of lime in bones is insoluble in water, though 
rain water contaiDing carbonic acid, and the water in soils, slowly 
dissolve it. By treating the bones with sulphuric acid, the phos- 
phate of lime is decomposed and rendered soluble. Consequently, 
bone-dust treated with sulphuric acid will act much more rapidly 
than ordinary bone-dust. The sulphuric acid does not make it any 
richer in phosphoric acid or nitrogen. It simply renders them more 
available. 

" And yet," said the Doctor, " the use of sulphuric acid for * dis- 
solving' bones, or rather phosphate of lime, introduced a new era 
in agriculture. It is the grand agricultural fact of the nineteenth 
century." 

" It is perhaps not necessary," said I, " to give any direction for 
treating bones with sulphuric acid. We have got beyond that. 
We can now buy superphosphate cheaper than we can make it 
from bones." 

•' But is it as good ? " asked the Deacon. 

" Soluble phosphate of lime," said I, " is soluble phosphate of 
lime, and it makes no difference whether it is made from burnt 
bones, or from phosphatic guano, or mineral phosphate. That ques- 
tion has been fully decided by the most satisfactory experiments." 

"Before you and the Deacon discuss that subject," said the Doc- 
tor, " it would be well to tell Charley what superphosphate is." 

" I wish you would tell me," said Charley. 

" Well," said the Doctor, " phosphate of lime, as it exists in 
bones, is composed of three atoms of lime and one atom of phos- 
phoric acid. Chemists call it the tricalcic phosphate. It is also 
called the basic phosphate of lime, and not unfrequently the 
* bone-earth phosphate.' It is the ordinary or common form of 
phosphate of lime, as it exists in animals, and plants, and in the 
various forms of mineral phosphates. 

" Then there is another phosphate of lime, called the dicalcic 
phosphate, or neutral phosphate of lime, or reverted phosphate of 
lime. It is composed of one atom of water, two atoms of lime, 
and one atom of phosphoric acid. 

" Then we have what we call superphosphate, or acid phosphate 
of lime, or more properly monocalcic phosphate. It is composed 
of two atoms of water, one atom of lime, and one atom of phos- 
phoric acid. This acid phosphate of lime is soluble in water. 

"The manufacture of superphosphate of lime is based on these 
facts. The one-lime phosphate is soluble, the three-WmQ phosphate 
is insoluble. To convert the latter into the former, all we have 
to do is to take away two atoms of lime. 



318 TALKS ON MANURES. 

" Sulphuric acid has a stronger affinity for lime than phosphoric 
acid. And when you mix enough sulphuric acid with finely ground 
three-lime phosphate, to take away two atoms of lime, you get the 
phosphoric acid united with one atom of lime and two atoms of 
water." 

" And what," asked the Deacon, " becomes of the two atoms of 
lime ? " 

" They unite with the sulphuric acid," said the Doctor, " and 
form plaster, gypsum, or sulphate of lime." 

"The molecular weight of water," continued the Doctor, " is 
18 ; of lime, 56 ; of sulphuric acid, 80 ; of phosphoric acid, 143. 

" An average sample of commercial bone-dust," continued the 
Doctor, " contains about 50 per cent of phosphate of lime. If we 
take 620 lbs. of finely-ground bone-dust, containing 310 lbs. of 
three-lime phosphate, and mix with it 160 lbs. of sulphuric acid 
(say 240 lbs. common oil of vitriol, sp. gr. 1.7), the sulphuric acid 
will unite with 112 lbs. of lime, and leave the 142 lbs. of phos- 
phoric acid united with the remaining 56 lbs. of lime." 

*'And that will give you," said the Deacon, "780 lbs. of 'dis- 
solved bones,' or superphosphate of lime." 

" It will give you more than that," said the Doctor, " because, as 
I said before, the two atoms of lime (112 lbs.) are replaced by two 
atoms (36 lbs.) of water. And, furthermore, the two atoms of 
sulphate of lime produced, contained two atoms (36 lbs.) of water. 
The mixture, therefore, contains, even when perfectly dry, 73 lbs. 
of water." 

" Where does this water come from ? " asked the Deacon. 

"When I was ut Rothamsted," said I, "the superphosphate 
which Mr. Lawes used in his experiments was made on the farm 
from animal charcoal, or burnt Doncs, ground as fine as possible — 
the finer the better. We took 40 lbs. of the meal, and mixed it 
with 20 lbs. of water, and then poured on 30 lbs. of common sul- 
phuric acid (sp. g. 1.7), and stirred it up rapidly and thoroughly, 
and then threw it out of the vessel into a heap, on the earth-floor 
in the barn. Then mixed another portion, and so on, until we had 
the desired quantity, say two or three tons. The last year I was 
at Rothamsted, we mixed 40 lbs. bone-meal, 30 lbs. v^ater, and 30 
lbs. acid ; and we thought the additional water enabled us to mix 
the acid and meal together easier and better." 

"Dr. Habirshaw tells me," said the Doctor, "that in making 
the 'Rectified Peruvian Guano ' no water is necessary, and none 
is used. The water in the guano and in the acid is sufficient to 



BONE-DUST AND SUPERPHOSPHATE OF LIME. 319 

furnish the two atoms of water for the phosphate, and the two 
atoms for the sulphate of lime." ^ 

*' Such is undoubtedly the case," said I, " and when large quan- 
tities of superphospliate are made, and the mixing is done by ma- 
chinery, it is not necessary to use water. The advantage of using 
water is in the greater ease of mixing." 

" Bone-dust," said the Doctor, " contains about 6 per cent of 
water, and the sulphuric acid (sp. g. 1.7) contains about one-third 
its weight of water. So that, if you take 620 lbs. of bone-dust, 
and mix with it 240 lbs. of common sulphuric acid, you have in 
the mixture 117 lbs, of water, which is 45 lbs. more than is needed 
to furnish the water of combination." 

" The superphospliate produced from 620 lbs. of bones, there- 
fore," continued the Doctor, " would contain : 

Phosphoric acid ) 1 142 lbs. 

Lime >-acid phosphate 4 56 " 

Water ) I 36 " 

Sulphuric acid ) (160 lbs. 

Lime V sulphate of lime ■< 113 "■ 

Water ) ( 36 " 

Organic matter, ash, etc., of the bones* 335 " 

Total dry superphosphate b77 '• 

Moisture, or loss 45 " 

Total mixture 93:i lbs. 

* Containing nitro;:;cn, 2334 Sis. 

" There is a small quantity of carbonate of lime in the bones," 
Baid I, " which would take up a little of the acid, and you will 
have a remarkably good article if you calculate that the 020 lbs. of 
bone-dust furnish you half a ton (1,000 lbs.) of superphosphate. It 
will be a better article than it is practically possible to make." 

" Assuming that it made half a ton," said the Doctor, " it would 
contain 14^ per cent of soluble phosphoric acid, and 2^ per cent 
of nitrogen." 

"With nitrogen at 20 cents per lb., and soluble phosphoric 
acid at 12^c. per lb., this half ton of superphosphate, made from 
020 lbs. of good bone-dust, would be worth $22.50, or $45 per ton." 

" Or, to look at it in another light," continued the Doctor, " a 
ton of bone-dust, made into such a superphosphatj as we are talk- 
ing about, would be worth $72.58." 

" How much," asked the Deacon, " would a ton of the bone-dust 
be considered worth before it was converted into superphosphate ? " 

" A ton of bone-dust," replied the Doctor, " contains 70 lbs. of 
nitrogen, worth, at 18 cents per lb., $13.08, and 404 lbs. phosphoric 
acid, worth 7 cents per lb., $32.48. In other words, a ton of bone- 
dust, at the usual estimate, is worth $40.16." 



320 . TALKS ON MANURES. 

" And," said the Deacon, " after it is converted into superphos- 
phate, the same ton of boij^s is worth $72.58. It thus appears that 
you pay $26.42 per ton for simpiy making the phosphoric acid in 
a ton of bones soluble. Is'nt it paying a little too much for the 
whistle ? " 

" Possibly such is the case," said I, "and in point of fact, I 
think bone-dust, especially from steamed or boiled bones, can be 
used with more economy in its natural state than in the form of 
superphosphate." 

Superphosphate can be made more economically from mineral 
phosphates than from bones— the nitrogen, if desired, being sup- 
plied from fish-scrap or from some other cheap source of nitrogen. 

But for my own use I would prefer to buy a good article of 
superphosphate of lime, containing no nitrogen, provided it can 
be obtained cheap enough. I would buy the ammoniacal, or nitro- 
genous manure separately, and do my own mixing — unless the 
mixture could be bought at a less cost than the same weight of 
soluble phosphoric acid, and available nitrogen could be obtained 
separately. 

A pure superphosphate — and by pure I mean a superphosphate 
containing no nitrogen — can be drilled in with the seed without 
injury, but I should be a little afraid of drilling in some of the 
ammoniacal or nitrogenous superphosphates with small seeds. 

And then, again, the "nitrogen" in a superphosphate mixture 
may be in the form of nitric acid, or sulphate of ammonia, in one 
case, or, in another case, in the form of hair, woollen rags, hide, 
or leather. It is far more valuable as nitric acid or ammonia, 
because it will act quicker, and if I wanted hair, woollen rags, 
horn-shavings, etc., I would prefer to have them separate from 
the superphosphate. 



CHAPTER XXXYIII. 
SPECIAL MANURES. 

Twenty- five to thirty years ago, much was said in regard to spe- 
cial manures. Fertilizers were prepared for the different crops with 
special reference to the composition of the plants. 

"But it was known then, as now," said the Doctor, "that all 
our agricultural plants were composed of the same elements." 

" True, but what was claimed was this : Some crops contain, for 



SPECIAL MANURES. . 321 

instance, more phosphoric acid than other crops, and for these a 
manure rich in phosphoric acid was provided. Others contained a 
large proportion of potash, and these were called ' potash crops,' 
and the manure prescribed for them was rich in potash. And so 
with the other ingredients of plants.'* 

" I recollect it well," said the Doctor, " and, in truth, for several 
years I had much faith in the idea. It was advocated with con- 
summate ability by the lamented Liebig, and in fact a patent was 
taken out by the Musgraves, of Liverpool, for the manufacture of 
Liebig's Special Manures, based on this theory. But the manures, 
though extensively used by the leading farmers of England, and 
endorsed by the highest authorities, did not in the end stand the 
test of actual farm practice, and their manufacture was abandoned. 
And I do not know of any experienced agricultural chemist who 
now advocates this doctrine of special manures. 

*'Dr. Voelcker says: ' The ash-analyses of plants do not aflford 
a sufficiently trustworthy guide to the practical farmer in selecting 
the kind of manure which is best applied to each crop.' " 

*' Never mind the authorities," said the Deacon ; " what we want 
are facts." 

" Well," replied the Doctor, " take the wheat and turnip crop as 
an illustration. 

" We will suppose that there is twice the weight of wheat-straw 
as of grain ; and that to 10 tons of bulbs there is 3 tons of turnip- 
tops. Now, 100 lbs. each of the ash of these two crops contain : 

Wheat o'op. Turnip crop. 

Phosphoric acid 11.44 7.33 

Potash 15.44 32.75 

Sulphuric acid 2.44 11.35 

Lime 5.09 19.38 

Magnesia 3.33 1.56 

*' There are other ingredients," continued the Doctor, " but these 
are the most important. 

" Now, if you were going to compound a manure for wheat, say 
100 lbs., consisting of potash and phosphoric acid, what would be 
the proportions ? " 

The Deacon figured for a few moments, and then produced the 
following table : 

100 LBS. SPECIAL MANURE FOR WHEAT AND TURNIPS. 

Wheat manure. Ticrnip manure. 

Phosphoric acid 42i lbs. 181 lbs. 

Potash 57i '' 81f '' 

100 lbs. lUO lbs. 

"Exactly," said the Doctor, *' and yet the experiments of Lawes 



322 TALKS ON MANURES. 

and Gilbert clearly prove that a soil needs to be richer in available 
phosphoric acid, to produce even a fair crop of turnips, than to 
produce a large crop of wheat. - And the experience of farmers 
everywhere tends in the same direction. England is the greatest 
turnip-growing country in the world, and you will find that where 
one farmer applies potash to turnips, or superphosphate to wheat, 
a hundred farmers use superphosphate as a special manure for the 
turnip crop." 

"And we are certainly warranted in saying," continued the Doc- 
tor, " that the composition of a plant affords, in practical agriculture, 
and on ordinary cultivated soils, no sort of indication as to the com- 
position of the manure it is best to apply to the crop^ 

*' Again," continued the Doctor, " if the theory was a correct one, 
it would follow that those crops which contained the most nitro- 
gen, would require the most nitrogen in the manure. Beans, peas, 
and clover would require a soil or a manure richer in available ni- 
trogen than wheat, barley, or oats. We know that the mry reverse 
is true — knpw it from actual, and repeated, and long-continued ex- 
periments like those of Lawes and Gilbert, and from the common 
experience of farmers everywhere." 

" You need not get excited," said the Deacon, " the theory is a 
very plausible one, and while I cannot dispute your facts, I must 
confess I cannot see wliy it is not reasonable to suppose that a 
plant which contains a large amount of nitrogen should not want 
a manure specially rich in nitrogen ; or why turnips which contain 
so much potash should not want a soil or manure specially rich in 
potash." 

" Do you recollect," said I, " that crop of turnips I raised on a 
poor blowing-sand ? " 

*' Yes," said the Deacon, *' it was the best crop of turnips I ever 
saw grow." 

*' That crop of turnips,'^ said I, " was due to a dressing of super- 
phosphate of lime, with little or no potash in it." 

"I know all that," said the Deacon. "I admit the fact that 
superphosphate is a good manure for turnips. What I want to 
know is the reason why superphosphate is better for tiirnips than 
for wheat?" 

"Many reasons might be given," said the Doctor; "Prof. 
Voelcker attributes it to the limited feeding range of the roots of 
turnips, r.s compared to wheat. ' The roots of wheat,' says Prof. 
Vffilcker, ' as is well known, penetrate the soil to a much greater 
depth than the more delicate feeding fibres of the roots of turnips. 
Wheat, remaining on the ground two or three months longer than 



SPECIAL MANURES. 323 

turnips, can avail itself for a longer period of the resources of tlie 
soil ; therefore in most cases the phosphoric acid disseminated 
through the soil is amply sufficient to meet the requirements of the 
wheat crop ; whilst turnips, depending on a thinner depth of soil 
during their shorter period of growth, cannot assimilate sufficient 
phosphoric acid, to come to perfection. This is, I believe, the 
main reason why the direct supply of readily available phosphates 
is so beneficial to root-crops, and not to wheat." 

"This reason," said I, *' has never been entirely satisfactory to 
me. If the roots of the turnip have such a limited range, how are 
they able to get such a large amount of potash ? 

" It is probable that the turnip, containing such a large relative 
amount of potash and so little phosphoric acid, has roots capable 
of absorbing potash from a very weak solution, but not so in re- 
gard to phosphoric acid." 

*' There is another way of looking at this matter," said the Doc- 
tor. "You must recollect that, if turnips and wheat were grow- 
ing in the same field, both plants get their food from the same so- 
lution. And instead of supposing that the wheat-plant has the 
power of taking up more phosphoric acid than the turnip-plant, 
we may suppose that the turnip has the power of rejecting or ex- 
cluding a portion of phosphoric acid. It takes up no more potash 
than the wheat-plant, but it takes less phosphoric acid." 

But it is not necessary to speculate on this matter. For the 
present we may accept the fact, that the proportion of potash, 
phosphoric acid, and nitrogen in the crop is no indication of the 
proper proportion in which these ingredients should be applied to 
the soil for these crops in manure. 

It may well be that we should use special manures for special 
crops ; but we must ascertain what these manures should be, not 
from analyses of the crops to be grown, but from experiment and 
experience. 

So far as present facts throw light on this subject, we should 
conclude that those crops which contain the least nitrogen are the 
most likely to be benefited by its artificial application ; and the 
crops containing (he most phosphoric acid, are the crops to which, 
in ordinary practical agriculture, it will be unprofitable to apply 
superphosphate of lime. 

•' That," said the Doctor, " may be stating the case a little too 
strong." 

" Perhaps so," said I, " but you must recollect I am now speak- 
ing of practical agriculture. If I wanted to r«ise a good crop of 
cabbage, I should not think of consulting a chemical analysis 



324 TALKS ON MANURES. 

of the cabbage. If I set out cabbage on an acre of land, which, 
without manure, would produce 16 tons of cabbage, does any one 
mean to tell me that if I put the amount of nitrogen, phosphoric 
acid and potash which 10 tons of cabbage contain, on an adjoining 
acre, that it would produce an extra growth of 10 tons of cabbage. 
I can not believe it. The facts are all the other waj'-. Plant 
growth is not such a simple matter as the advocates of this theory, 
if there be any at this late day, would have us believe." 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 
VALUE OF FERTILIZERS. 

In 1857, Prof. S. W. Johnson, in his Report to the Connecticut 

Agricultural Society, adopted the following valuation : 

Potash 4 cents per lb. 

Phosphoric acid, insoluble in water 4? " " " 

" '* soluble " " ....13i " " " 
Nitrogen 17 " " " 

Analyses of many of the leading commercial fertilizers at that 
time showed that, when judged by this standard, the price charged 
was far above their actual value. In some cases, manures selling 
for $60 per ton, contained nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash 
worth only from $20 to $25 per ton. And one well-known manure, 
which sold for $28 per ton, was found to be worth only $2.33 per 
ton. A Bone Fertilizer selling at $50 per ton, was worth less than 
$14 per ton. 

" In 1852," said the Doctor, " superphosphate of lime was manu- 
factured by the New Jersey Zinc Co., and sold in New York at 
$50 per ton of 2,000 lbs. At the same time, superphosphate of 
lime made from Coprolites, w^as selling in England for $24 per ton 
of 2,240 lbs. The late Prof. Mapes commenced making "Ira- 
proved Superphosphate of Lime," at Newark, N. J., in 1852, and 
Mr. De Burg, the same year, made a plain superphosphate of lime 
in Brooklyn, N. Y. The price, in proportion to value, was high, 
and, in fact, the same may be said of many of our superphos- 
phate manures, until within the last few years. 

Notwithstanding the comparatively high price, and the uncer- 
tain quality of these commercial manures, the demand has been 
steadily on the increase. We have now many honorable and in- 



VALUE OF FERTILIZERS. 325 

telligent men engaged in the manufacture and sale of these artifi- 
cial manures, and owing to more definite knowledge on the part 
of the manufacturers and of the purchasers, it is not a difficult 
matter to find manures well worth the money asked for them. 

" A correct analysis," said I, " furnishes the only sure test of 
value. * Testimonials ' from farmers and others are pre-eminently 
unreliable. With over thirty years' experience in the use of these 
fertilizers, I would place far more confidence on a good and reli- 
able analysis than on any actual trial I could make in the field. 
Testimonials to a patent fertilizer are about as reliable as testimo- 
nials to a patent-medicine. In buying a manure, we want to know 
what it contains, and the condition of the constituents." 

In 1877, Prof. S. W. Johnson gives the following figures, show- 
ing " the trade-values, or cost in market, per pound, of the ordi- 
nary occurring forms of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, as 
recently found in the New York and New England markets: 

Cents per pound. 

Nitrogen in ammonia and nitrates 24 

*' in Peruvian Guano, fine steamed bone, dried and 

fine ground blood, meat, and fish 20 

" in fine ijround bone, horn, and wool-dust 18 

" in coarse bone, horn-shaYings, and fish-scrap 15 

Phosphoric acid soluble in water 121 

" " " reverted," and in Peruvian Guano 9 

" " insoluble, in fine bone and fish o-uano 7 

" " " in coarse bone, bone-ash, and 

bone-black 5 

" " " in fine ground rock phosphate. . . 3^ 

Potash in hi^h-grade sulphate 9 

" in kainit, as sulphate 7\ 

" in muriate, or potassium chloride G 

** These * estimated values,' " says Prof. Johnson, " are not fixed, 
but vary with the state of the market, and arc from time to time 
subject to revision. They are not exact to the cent or its fractions, 
because the same article sells cheaper at commercial or manufac- 
turing centers than in country towns, cheaper in large lots than ia 
small, cheaper for cash than on time. These values are high 
enough to do no injustice to the dealer, and accurate enough to 
serve the object of the consumer. 

"By multiplying the per cent of Nitrogen, etc., by the trade- 
value per pound, and then by 20, we get the value per ton of the 
several ingredients, and adding the latter together, we obtain the 
total estimated value per ton. 

" The uses of the ' Valuation ' are, 1st, to show whether a given 
lot or brand of fertilizer is worth as a commodity of trade wliat it 
costs. If the selling price is no higher than the estimated value, 



326 TALKS ON MANURES. 

the purchaser may be quite sure that the price is reasonable. If 
the selling price is but $2 to $3 per ton more than the estimated 
value, it may still be a fair price,' but if the cost per ton is $5 or 
more over the estimated value, it would be well to look further. 
2d, Comparisons of the estimated values, and selling prices of a 
number of fertilizers will generally indicate fairly which is the 
best for the money. But the ' estimated value ' is not to be too 
literally construed, for analysis cannot always decide accurately 
what is the /arm of nitrogen, etc., while the mechanical condition 
of a fertilizer is an item whose influence cannot always be rightly 
expressed or appreciated. 

" The Agricultural vali/e of a fertilizer is measured by the benefit 
received from its use, and depends upon its fertilizing effect, or 
crop-producing power. As a broad general rule it is true that 
Peruvian guano, superphosphates, fish-scraps, dried blood, potash 
salts, plaster, etc., have a high agricultural value which is related 
to their trade-value, and to a degree determines the latter value. 
But the rule has many exceptions, and in particular instances the 
trade-value cannot always be expected to fix or even to indicate 
the agricultural value. Fertilizing effect depends largely upon soil, 
crop, and weather, and as these vary from place to place, and from 
year to year, it cannot be foretold or estimated except by the 
results of past experience, and then only in a general and probable 
manner." 

" It will be seen," said the Doctor, " that Prof. Johnson places 
a higher value on potash now than he did 20 years ago. He re- 
tains the same figures for soluble phosphoric acid, and makes a very 
just and proper discrimination between the different values of dif- 
ferent forms of nitrogen and phosphoric acid." 

"The prices," said I, "are full as high as farmers can aflTord to 
pay. But there is not much probability that we shall see them 
permanently reduced. The tendency is in the other direction. In 
a public address Mr. J. B. Lawes has recently remarked: *A 
future generation of British farmers will doubtless hear with some 
surprise that, at the close of the manure season of 1876, there were 
40,000 tons of nitrate of soda in our docks, which could not find 
purchasers, although the price did not exceed £12 or £13 per ton.' " 

"He evidently thinks," said the Doctor, " that available nitro- 
gen is cheaper now than it will be in years to come." 

" Nitrate of soda," said I, " at the prices named, is only 2^ to 2f 
cents per r\, and the nitrogen it contains would cost less than 18 
cents per lb., instead of 24 cents, as given by Prof. Johnson." 

"No. 1 Peruvian Guano, 'guaranteed,' is now sold," said the 



VALUE OF FERTILIZERS. 327 

Doctor, ** at a price per ton, to be determined by its composition, 
at the following rates : 

Value per pound. 

Nitro,2:en (ammonia, 171-c.) 21ic. 

Soluble phosphoric acid 10 c. 

Reverted " " 8 c. 

Insoluble " " 2 c. 

Potash, as sulphate and phosphate 7ic. 

"The first cargo of Peruvian guano, sold under this guarantee, 
contained : 

Value per ton. 

Ammonia 6.8 per cent $23.80 

Soluble phosphoric acid.. 3.8 *' " 7.60 

Reverted " " ..11.5 " " 18.40 

Insoluble " " .. 3.0 « " 1.20 

Potash 3.7 " " 5.55 

Estimated retail price per ton of 2,000 lbs $56.55 

Marked on bags for sale $56.00 

The second cargo, sold under this guarantee, contained : 

Value per ton. 

Ammonia 11.5 per cent $40.50 

Soluble phosphoric acid.. 5.4 " " 10.80 

Reverted " " ..10.0 " " 16.00 

Insoluble " " .. 1.7 « " 68 

Potash 2.3 « " 3.45 

$71.43 
Selling price marked on bags $70.00 

" It is interesting," said I, '* to compare these analyses of Peru- 
vian guano of to-day, with Peruvian guano brought to England 
twenty-nine or thirty years ago. I saw at Rothamsted thirty years 
ago a bag of guano that contained 22 per cent of ammonia. And 
farmers could then buy guano guaranteed by the dealers (not by 
the agents of the Peruvian Government), to contain 16 per cent of 
ammonia, and 10 per cent of phosphoric acid. Price, £9 5s. per 
ton of 2,240 lbs.— say $40 per ton of 2,000 lbs. 

The average composition of thirty-two cargoes of guano im- 
ported into England in 1849 was as follows : 

Ammonia 17.41 per cent. 

Phosphoric acid 9.75 " " 

Alkaline salts 8.75 '* " 

At the present valuation, adopted by the Agents of the Peruvian 
guano in New York, and estimating that 5 per cent of the phos- 
phoric acid was soluble, and 4 per cent reverted, and that there 
was 2 lbs. of potash in the alkaline salts, this guano would be 
worth ; 



328 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Value per ton of 2,000 lbs. 

Ammonia 17.41 per cent $60.93 

Soluble phosphoric acid.. 5.00 " '' 10.00 

Reverted " " /. 4.00 " " 6.40 

Insoluble " " .. 75 " " 30 

Potash 2.00 " '' 3.00 

$80.63 
Selling pricfa per ton of 2,000 lbs $40.00 

Ichaboe guano, which was largely imported into England in 
1844-5, and used extensively as a manure for turnips, contained, 
on the average, 7i per cent of ammonia, and 14 per cent of phos- 
phoric acid. Its value at the present rates we may estimate as 
follows : 

Ammonia, 7^ per cent $26.25 

Soluble Phosphoric acid, 4 per cent 8.00 

Reverted " " 10 *' 16.00 

$50.25 
Selling price per ton of 2,000 lbs $21.80 

The potash is not given, or this would probably add four or five 
dollars to its estimated value. 

" All of which goes to show," said the Deacon, " that the Peru- 
vian Government is asking, in proportion to value, from two to 
two and a half times as much for guano as was charged twenty- 
five or thirty years ago. That first cargo of guano, sold in New 
York under the new guarantee, in 1877, for $56 per ton, is worth 
no more than the Ichaboe guano sold in England in 1845, for less 
than $23 per ton ! 

" And furthermore, continued the Deacon, " from all that I can 
learn, the guano of the present day is not only far poorer in nitro- 
gen than it was formerly, but the nitrogen is not as soluble, and 
consequently not so valuable, pound for pound. Much of the 
guano of the present day bears about the same relation to genuine 
old-fashioned guano, as leached ashes do to unleached, or as a ton 
of manure that has been leached in the barn-yard does to a ton 
that has been kept under cover." 

*'True, to a certain extent," said the Doctor, "but you must 
recollect that this ' guaranteed ' guano is now sold by analysis. 
You pay for what you get and no more." 

" Exactly," said the Deacon, " but what you get is not so good. 
A pound of nitrogen in the leached guano is not as available or as 
valuable as a pound of nitrogen in the unleached guano. An this 
fact ought to be understood." 

"One thing," said I, "seems clear. The Peruvian Government 
is charging a considerably higher price for guano, in proportion 
to its actual value, than was charged 20 or 25 years ago. It may 



VALUE OF FERTILIZERS. 329 

be, that the guano is still the cheapest manure in the market, but 
at any rate the price is higher than formerly— while there has been 
no corresponding advance in the price of produce in the markets 
of the world." 

POTASH AS A MANURE. 

On land where fish, fish-scrap, or guano, has been used freely 
for some years, and the crops exported from the farm, we may ex- 
pect a relative deficiency of potash in the soil. In such a case, an . 
application of unleached ashes or potash-salts will be likely to 
produce a decided benefit. 

Clay or loamy land is usually richer in potash than soils of a 
more sandy or gravelly character. And on poor sandy land, the 
use of fish or of guano, if the crops are all sold, will be soon likely 
to prove of little benefit owing to a deficiency of potash in the soil. 
They may produce good crops for a few years, but the larger the 
crops produced and sold, the more would the soil become deficient 
in potash. 

We have given the particulars of Lawes and Gilbert's experi- 
ments on barley. Mr. Lawes at a late meeting in London, stated 
that " he had grown 25 crops of barley one after the other with 
nitrogen, either as ammonia or nitrate of soda, but without 
potash, and that by the use of potash they had produced practically 
no better result. This year (1877), for the first time, the potash 
had failed a little, and they had now produced 10 or 12 bushels 
more per acre with potash than without, showing that they were 
coming to the end of the available potash in the soil. This year 
(1877),"they obtained 54 bushels of barley with potash, and 42 
bushels without it. Of course, this was to be expected, and they 
had expected it much sooner. The same with wheat ; he expected 
the end would come in a few years, but they had now gone on be- 
tween 30 and 40 years. When the end came they would not be 
sorry, because then they would have the knowledge they were 
seeking for." 

Dr. Voelcker, at the same meeting remarked : " Many soils con- 
tained from li to 2 per cent of available potash, and a still larger 
quantity locked up, in the shape of minerals, which only gradually 
came into play ; but the quantity of potash carried off in crops 
did not exceed 2 cwt. per acre, if so much. Now 0.1 per cent of 
any constituent, calculated on a depth of six inches, was equiva- 
lent to one ton per acre. Therefore, if a soil contained only 0.1 
per cent of potash, a ton of potash might be carried oflf from a 



330 TALKS ON MANUBES. 

depth of 6 inches. But you had not only 0.1 per cent, but some- 
thing like li per cent and upwards in many soils. It is quite true 
there were many soils from which you could not continuously 
take crops without restoring the potash." 

" In all of which," said the Doctor, " there is nothing new. It 
does not help us to determine whether potash is or is not deficient 
in our soil." 

" That," said I, " can be ascertained only by actual experiment. 
Put a little hen-manure on a row of com, and on another row a 
little hen-manure and ashes, and on another row, ashes alone, and 
leave one row without anythmg. On my farm I am satisfied that 
we need not buy potash-salts for manure. I do not say they would 
do no good, for they may do good on land not deficient in availa- 
ble potash, just as lime will do good on land containing large 
quantities of lime. But potash is not what my land needs to make 
it produce maximum crops. It needs available nitrogen, and 
possibly soluble phosphoric acid." 

The system of farming adopted in this section, is much more 
likely to impoverish the soil of nitrogen and phosphoric acid than 
of potash. 

If a soil is deficient in potash, the crop which will first indicate 
the deficiency, will probably be clover, or beans. Farmers who can 
grow large crops of red-clover, need not buy potash for manure. 

On farms where grain is largely raised and sold, and where the 
straw, and corn-stalks, and hay, and the hay from clover-seed are 
retained on the farm, and this strawy manure returned to the land, 
the soil will become poor from the lack of nitrogen and phos- 
phoric acid long before there would be any need of an artificial 
supply of potash. 

On the other hand, if farmers should use fish, or guano, or 
superphosphate, or nitrate of soda, and sell all the hay, and straw, 
and potatoes, and root-crops, they could raise, many of our sandy 
soils would soon become poor in available potash. But even in 
this case the clover and beans would show the deficiency sooner 
than wheat or even potatoes. 

" And yet we are told," said the Deacon, " that potatoes contain 
no end of potash." 

"And the same is true," said I, "of root-crops, such as mangel- 
wurzel, turnips, etc., but the fact has no other significance than 
this: If you grow potatoes for many years on the same land and 
manure them with nitrogenous manures, the soil is likely to be 
speedily impoverished of potash." 

" But suppose," said the Deacon, " that you grow potatoes on the 



VALUE OF FERTILIZERS. 331 

same land without manure of any kind, would not the soil become 
equally poor in potash ?" 

" No," said I, " because you would, in such a case, get very 
small crops — small, not from lack of potash, but from lack of nitro- 
gen. If I had land which had grown corn, potatoes, wheat, oats, 
and hay, for many years without manure, or an occasional dress- 
ing of our common barnyard-manure, and wanted it to produce a 
good crop of potatoes, I should not expect to get it by simply 
applying potash. The soil might be poor in potash, but it is 
almost certain to be still poorer in nitrogen and phosphoric acid. 

Land that has been manured with farm-yard or stable-manure 
for years, no matter how it has been cropped, is not likely to need 
potash. The manure is richer in potash than in nitrogen and 
phosphoric acid. And the same may be said of the soil. 

If a farmer uses nitrogenous and phosphatic manures on his 
clayey or loamy land that is usually relatively rich in potash, and 
will apply his common manure to the sandy parts of the farm, he 
will rarely need to purchase manures containing potash. 



332 TALKS ON MAJEURES. 



CHAPTER XL. 
RESTORING FERTILITY TO THE SOIL. 

BY SIB J. B. LAWES, BART., LL.D., F.K.S., ROTHAMSTED, ENG. 

A relation of mine, who already possessed a very consider- 
able estate, consisting of light land, about twenty years ago 
purchased a large property adjoining it at a very high price. 
These were days when farmers were flourishing, and they no 
more anticipated what was in store for them in the future, 
than the inhabitants of the earth in the days of Noah, 

Times have changed since then, and bad seasons, low prices 
of wheat, and cattle-disease, have swept off the tenants from 
these two estates, so that my relation finds himself now in the 
position of being the unhappy owner and occupier of five or 
six farms, extending over several thousand acres — one farm 
alone occupying an area of two thousand four hundred acres. 
Fortunately for the own'fer, he possesses town property in addi- 
tion to his landed estates, so that the question with him is not, 
as it is with many land owners, how to find the necessary capi- 
tal to cultivate the land, but, having found the capital, how to 
expend it in farming, so as to produce a proper return. 

It is not very surprising that, under these circumstances, my 
opinion should have been asked. What, indeed, would have 
been the use of a relation, who not only spent all his time in 
agricultural experiments, but also pretended to teach our 
neighbors how to farm on the other side of the Atlantic, if he 
could not bring his science to bear on the land of an adjoining 
county ! Here is the land— my relation might naturally say- 
here is the money, and I have so much confidence in your 
capacity that I will give you carte-blanche to spend as much as 
you please — what am I to do ? 

An inspection of the property brought out the following facts 
— that all the land was very light, and that you might walk 
over the fresh plowed surface in the wettest weather without 
any clay sticking to your boots : still a portion of the soil was 
dark in color, and therefore probably contained a sufficient 
amount of fertility to make cultivation profitable, provided the 
management could be conducted with that care and economy 
which are absolute essentials in a business where the expendi- 
ture is always pressing closely upon the income. 



EESTOKIKG FEETILITY TO THE SOIL. 333 

Upon land of this description meat-making is the backbone 
of the system, which must be adopted, and a large breeding 
flock of sheep the first essential towards success. 

Science can make very little improvement upon the four- 
course rotation — ^roots, barley, clover, and wheat, unless, per- 
haps, it may be by keeping the land in clover, or mixed grass 
and clover, for two or three years. 

A good deal of the land I was inspecting was so light, that, in 
fact, it was hardly more than sand, and for some years it had been 
left to grow anything that came up, undisturbed by the plow. 

To a practised eye, the character of the natural vegetation is 
a sure indication of the fertility of the soil. Where herds of 
buffaloes are to be seen — their sides shaking with fat — it is 
quite evident that the pastures upon which they feed cannot 
be very bad ; and in the same way, where a rank growth of 
weeds is found springing up upon land that has been abandon- 
ed, it may be taken for certain that the elements of food exist 
in the soil. Tliis ground was covered with vegetation, but of 
the most impoverished description, even the "Quack" or 
"Couch-grass" could not form a regular carpet, but grew in 
small, detached bunches ; everything, in fact, bore evidence of 
poverty. 

Possibly, the first idea which might occur to any one, on 
seeing land in this state, might be : Why not grow the crops by 
the aid of artificial manures ? 

Let us look at the question from two points of view : first, in 
regard to the cost of the ingredients ; and, secondly, in regard 
to the growth of the crop. 

We wiU begin with wheat. A crop of wheat, machine-reap- 
ed, contains, as carted to the stack, about six pounds of soil in- 
gredients in every one hundred pounds ; that is to say, each 
five pounds of mineral matter, and rather less than one pound 
of nitrogen, which the plant takes from the soil, will enable it 
to obtain ninety-four pounds of other substances from the at- 
mosphere. To grow a crop of twenty bushels of grain and 
two thousand pounds of straw, would require one hundred and 
sixty pounds of minerals, and about thirty-two pounds of nitro- 
gen ; of tlie one hundred and sixty pounds of minerals, one- 
half would be silica, of which the soil possesses already more 
than enough ; the remainder, consisting of about eighty pounds 
of potash and phosphate, could be furnished for from three 
to four dollars, and the thirty-two pounds of nitrogen could 
be purchased in nitrate of soda for six or eight dollars. 



334 TALKS OIT MAiq^UKES. 

The actual cost of the mgredients, therefore, in the crop of 
twenty bushels of wheat, would be about ten to twelve dollars. 
But as this manure would furnish the ingredients for the 
growth of both straw and grain, and it is customary to return 
the straw to the land, after the first crop, fully one-third of the 
cost of the manure might, in consequence, be deducted, which 
woiild make the ingredients of the twenty bushels amount to 
six dollars. Twenty bushels of wheat in England would sell 
for twenty-eight dollars ; therefore, there would be twenty-two 
dollars left for the cost of cultivation and profit. 

A French writer on scientific agriculture has employed 
figiu-es very similar to the above, to show how French farmers 
may grow wheat at less than one dollar per bushel. At this 
price they might certainly defy the competition of the United 
States. It is one thing, however, to grow crops in a lecture 
room, and quite another to grow them in a field. In dealing 
with artificial manures, furnishing phosphoric acid, potash, 
and nitrogen, we have substances which act upon the soil in 
very diJfferents ways. Phosphate of lime is a very insoluble 
substance, and requires an enormous amount of water to dis- 
solve it. Salts of potash^ on the other hand, are very soluble in 
water, but form very insoluble compounds with the soil. Salts 
of ammonia and nitrate of soda are perfectly soluble in water. 
When applied to the land, the ammonia of the former sub- 
stance forms an insoluble compound with the soil, but in a very 
short time is converted into nitrate of lime ; and with this salt 
and nitrate of soda, remains in solution in the soil water until 
they are either taken up by the plant or are washed away into 
the drains or rivers. 

Crops evaporate a very large amount of water, and with this 
water they attract the soluble nitrate from all parts of the soil. 
Very favorable seasons are therefore those in which the soil is 
neither too dry nor too wet ; as in one case the solution of 
nitrate becomes dried up in the soil, in the other it is either 
washed away, or the soil remains so wet that the plant cannot 
evaporate the water sufficiently to draw up the nitrates which 
it contains. 

The amount of potash and phosphoric acid dissolved in the 
water is far too small to supply the requirements of the plant, 
and it is probable that what is required for this purpose is dis- 
solved by some direct action of the roots of the plant on com- 
ing in contact with the insoluble phosphoric acid and potash m 
the soil. 



RESTORING FERTILITY TO THE SOIL. 335 

In support of this view, I may mention that we have clear 
evidence in some of our experiments of the wheat crop taking 
up both pliosphates and potash that were applied to the land 
thirty years ago. 

To suppose, therefore, that, if the ingredients which exist in 
twenty bushels of wheat and its straw, are simply applied to a 
barren soil, the crop will be able to come in contact with, and 
take up these substances, is to assume what certainly will not 
take place. 

I have often expressed an opinion that arable land, could not 
be cultivated profitably by means of artificial manures, unless 
the soil was capable of producing, from its own resources, a 
considerable amount of produce ; still the question had never 
up to tliis time come before me in a distinct form as one upon 
which I had to decide one way or the other. I had, however, 
Ho hesitation in coming to the conclusion, that grain crops could 
never be grown at a profit upon my relation's land, and that 
consequently, for some years, it would be better to give up the 
attempt, and try to improve the pasture. 

After what I have said about the insolubility of potash and 
phosphoric acid, it may possibly be asked — why not give a good 
dose of these substances at once, as they do not wash out of 
the soil — say enough to grow sixty crops of grain, and apply 
the nitrate, or ammonia every year in just sufficient amounts 
to supply the wants of the crop ? 

The objections to this plan are as follows: assuming the most 
favorable conditions of climate, and the largest possible pro- 
duce, the wheat could certainly not take up the whole of the 
thirty-two pounds of nitrogen apphed, and the crop which re- 
quires nearly one pound of nitrogen in every one hundred 
pounds of gross produce, would be certainly less than three 
thousand two hundred pounds, if supplied with only thirty-two 
pounds of nitrogen. If we take the total produce of the best 
and worst wheat crop, grown during the forty years of our ex- 
periments, we shall arrive at a better understanding in the 
matter. The following are the figures : 

Weight op Dry Produce of Wheat Per Acre. 

Straw and Grain. 

1863 :.-. '- 9330 lbs. 

1879 3859 " 

In order to ascertain the increase due to the nitrogen of the 
salts of ammonia or nitrate of soda, we must deduct from the 



333 TALKS OK MANURES. 

crop the produce obtained, where mineral manures without 
nitrogen were used. In 1863 this amount was three thousand 
pounds, and in 1879 it was one thousand two hu::dred pounds. 
Deducting these amounts from the gross produce in each case, 
leaves six thousand three hundred and thirty as the produce 
due to the nitrogen in the season of 1863, and two thousand six 
hundred and fifty-nine as the produce due to the nitrogen in 
1879. 

But in each case we appUed the same amount of nitrogen, 
eighty-seven pounds ; and as the amount of nitrogen in a wheat 
crop, as carted from the field, contains less than one per cent, of 
nitrogen, it is evident that if all that was contained in the 
manure had been taken up by the plant, the increased crop 
should have weighed ei^'ht thousand seven hundred pounds in- 
stead of six thousand three hundred and thirty. Thus even in 
our best year, some of th3 nitrogen applied failed to produce 
growth ; and when we come to the bad year we find that only 
twenty-six and a half pounds were taken up out of the eighty- 
seven pounds applied, thus leaving more than two-thirds of the 
whole unaccounted for. 

Seasons are only occasionally either very bad or very good. 
"What we call an average season does not differ very much from 
the mean of the best and worst years, which in this ca^e 
would be represented by a crop of four thousand four hundred 
and ninety -four pounds, containing nearly forty-five pounds of 
nitrogen. I may say that, although I have employed one per 
cent, to avoid fractions in my calculations, strictly speaking 
three-quarters of a per cent, would more nearly represent the 
real quantity. If, however, on the average, we only obtain 
about forty-five pounds from an application of about eighty- 
seven pounds of nitrogen, it is evident that not more than one- 
half of the amount applied enters into the crop. 

Now in dealing with a substance of so costly a nature as am- 
monia, or nitrate of soda — the nitrogen contained in which 
substances cannot cost much less than twenty-five cents per 
pound by the time it is spread upon the land, it becomes a ques- 
tion of importance to know what becomes of the other half, 
or the residue whatever it may be, which has not been taken 
up by the crop. Part is undoubtedly taken up by the weeds 
which grow with the wheat, and after the wheat has been 
cut. Part sinks into the sub-soil and is washed completely 
away during the winter. 

I, myself, am disposed to think that the very great difference 



RESTORIN^G FERTILITY TO THE SOIL. 337 

in the size of the Indian corn crops, as compared with the 
wheat crops in the States, is partly accounted for by their 
greater freedom from weeds, which are large consumers of 
nitric acid, and, in the case of the wheat crop, frequently re- 
duce the yield by several bushels per acre. It must, however, 
be borne in mind that, though the wheat is robbed of its food 
where there are weeds, still if there were no weeds, the amount 
of nitric acid which the crop could not get hold of, would, in 
all probabilty, be washed out of the soil during the ensuing 
winter. I come to the conclusion, therefore, that the nitro- 
gen alone, which would be required to produce one bushel of 
wheat, would cost not much less than fifty cents ; and that, in 
consequence, wheat-growing by means of artificial manures, 
will not pay upon very poor land. 

I have said that the land, about which I was consulted, had 
not been plowed for several years, and that although nature 
had done all she could to clothe the soil with vegetation, the 
most disheartening feature in the case was, the poverty of the 
weeds. A thistle may be a giant or a dwarf, according to cir- 
cumstances ; hare they were all dwarfs. The plaintain, which 
I believe is sometimes sown in these districts for food, has a 
very deep root : here the plants were abundant, but the leaves 
were very small and lay so close to the ground, that, as the 
manager informed m3, " the sheep were often injured from the 
amount of sand which they swallowed with the leaves when 
feeding." 

At Rothamsted, the analyses of the rain water passing 
through the ordinary soil of one of my fields, which has been 
kept free from vegetation, have shown that the amount of 
nitric acid liberated in a soil, and washed ou<^ each year, is very 
large. Taking the ten years during which these special experi- 
ments have been in progress, I should think that the loss of 
nitrogen would be equal to, or possibly exceed, the amount of 
that substance removed by the average crops grown in the 
United States. 

The results obtained by the rain gauges, are further com- 
pletely confirmed by those in an adjoining field, where wheat 
and fallow have been grown alternately for twenty-seven years. 
The liberation of nitric acid, during the year of rest, produced 
for a time a large growth of wheat, but it was done at a very 
great waste of the fertility of the soil, and the produce is now, 
in proportion, considerably lower than that grown on the con- 
tinuously unman ured land. 
15 



338 TALKS ON MANURES. 

These results, if they are to be accepted as correct, must 
bring about a very considerable .change in the generally re- 
ceived views in regard to fertility. We not only see more clearly 
the connection between a former vegetation and the stored up 
fertility in our soil, but we also see the importance of vegeta- 
tion at the present day, as the only means by which the loss of 
nitric acid is prevented. The more completely the land is cov- 
ered with vegetation, and the more growth there is, the greater 
will be the evaporation of water, and the less will be the loss of 
nitric acid by drainage. 

I was not at all surprised to find, that the surface soil of a 
wood on my farm, was poorer in nitrogen than the soil of an 
old permanent pasture, to which no manure had been applied 
for twenty-five years, though during the whole period, the crop 
of hay had been removed every year from the land. The wood 
to which I refer is covered with oak, centuries old, and the 
foliage is so dense that but little underwood or other vegetation 
can grow beneath it. If both the wood and the pasture were 
put into arable cultivation, I have no doubt that the pasture 
would prove much more fertile than the wood land. 

In our experiments on permanent pasture, it has been ob- 
served that the character of the herbage is mainly dependent on 
the food supplied. Weeds, and inferior grasses, can hold their 
own as long as poverty exists, but with a liberal supply of ma- 
nure, the superior grasses overgrow and drive out the bad 
grasses and weeds. In consequence of the low price of wheat 
a good deal of land in England has been laid down to perma- 
nent pasture, and much money has been spent in cleaning the 
land preparatory to sowing the grass-seeds. I have on more 
occasions than one, suggested that the money employed in this 
process would be better expended in manure, by which the 
weeds would be " improved " off the face of the land. While 
walking over the abandoned portion of these estates I explained 
my views upon this point to the manager. They were, how- 
ever, received with the usual skepticism, and the rejoinder that 
"there was only one way of getting rid of the weeds, which 
was by the plow and fire." 

There is nothing that speaks to me so forcibly as color in 
vegetation ; when travelling by rail, I do not require to be told 
that such a farm is, or is not, in high condition, or that we are 
passing through a fertile or infertile district. There is a pecu- 
liar green color in vegetation which is an unmistakable sign 
that it is living upon the fat of the land. I need hardly say 



RESTORING FERTILITY TO THE SOIL. 339 

that, in this case, the color of the vegetation gave unmistakable 
signs of the poverty of the soil ; but in the midst of the dingy 
yellowish-green of the herbage, I came upon one square of 
bright gi-een grass. In answer to my enquiry I was told that, 
a " lambing-f old had been there last year," and my informant 
added his opinion, " that the manure would be so strong that 
it would kill anything !" It had certainly killed the weeds, but 
in their place, some good grasses had taken possession of the 
soil. 

The plan I proposed to adopt was, to spend no more money 
on tillage operations, but to endeavor to improve the pasture by 
giving to it the food necessary to grow good grasses, sowing at 
the same time a small quantity of the best seeds. I further 
suggested that a flock of sheep should be allowed to run over 
the whole of the land by day, and be folded there every night 
— about one pound of cotton-seed cake per head being allowed 
daily. By this means, as the fold would be moved every day, 
the amount of manure deposited on the soil could be 
estimated. 

If there were a hundred sheep, receiving one pound of de- 
corticated cotton- seed cake per head, daily, and the hurdles 
were arranged to enclose a space of twenty-five by twenty yards, 
in the course of ten days an acre of land would have received 
manure from one thousand pounds of cake ; which amount 
would supply seventy-seven pounds of nitrogen, sixty-eight 
pounds of phosphate of lime, and thirty-two pounds of potash. 
This amount of cake would cost about sixteen dollars. 

As regards the value of the cake as a food, it is 
somewhat difficult to form an estimate ; but it takes nine or 
ten pounds of dry food — say roots, cake, and hay — to produce 
an increase of one pound of live weight in sheep. The cake 
has certainly a higher feeding value, than either hay or roots, 
but I will here give it only the same value, and consider that 
one hundred and ten pounds of increase of the animal was ob- 
tained by the consumption of the one thousand pounds of cake. 
The value of the increase of the live weight would be in Eng- 
land fully eleven dollars, leaving five doUars as the cost of the 
manure. Now the cake furnished seventy -seven pounds of 
nitrogen alone, which, if purchased in an artificial manure, 
would have cost nineteen dollars ; and the other substances 
supplied by the cake, would have cost from four to five dollars 
more. The manures required, therefore, would be obtained 
much more cheaply by this than by any other process. 



340 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Labor would be saved by not cultivating the land. Manure 
would be saved by substituting vegetation which grows under 
or above ground, almost all th§ year round. And, by feeding 
the si;Ock with cake, the necessary fertility would be obtained 
at the lowest possible cost. 

It is probable that the land would require this treatment to 
be repeated for several ^-ears, before there would be a fair 
growth of gr ss. The land might then be broken up and one 
grain crop be taken, then it might again be laid down to grass. 

Hitherto, I have considered a case where fertility is almost 
absent from the land, this, however, is an exception, as agri- 
culture generally is carried on upon soils which contain large 
stores of fertility, though they may be very unequally distribu- 
ted. By analysis of the soil we can measure the total amount 
of fertility which it contains, but we are left in ignorance in re- 
gard to the amount of the ingredients which are in such a form 
that the crops we cultivate can make use of them. 

At Rothamsted, among my experiments on the growth of con- 
tinuous wheat, at the end of forty years, the soil supphed with 
salts of ammonia has yielded, during the whole time, and still 
continues to yield, a larger produce than is obtained by a liberal 
supply of phosphates and alkaline salts without ammonia. 

When we consider that every, one hundred pounds of wheat 
crop, as carted to the stack, contains about five per cent, of 
mineral matter, and one per cent, of nitrogen, it is impossible 
to avoid the conclusion that my soil has a large available bal- 
ance of mineral substances which the crop could not make use 
of for want of nitrogen. The crop which has received these 
mineral manures now amounts to from twelve to thirteen 
bushels per acre, and removes from the land about sixteen 
pounds of nitrogen every year. 

Analyses of the soil show that, even after the removal of 
more than thirty crops in succession, without any application 
of manure containing ammonia, the soil still contains some 
thousands of pounds of nitrogen. This nitrogen is in combina- 
tion with carbon ; it is very insoluble in water, and until it be- 
comes separated from the carbon, and enters into combination 
with oxygen, does not appear to be of any use to the crop. 

The combination of nitrogen with oxygen, is known as ni- 
tric acid. The nitric acid enters into combination with the 
lime of the soil, and in this form becomes the food of plants. 

From its great importance in regard to the growth of plants, 
nitric acid might be called the main spring of agriculture, but 



EESTORING FERTILITY TO THE SOIL. 341 

being perfectly soluble in water, it is constantly liable to be 
washed out of the soil. In the experiment to which I have re- 
ferred above — where wheat is grown by mineral manures alone 
— we estimate that, of the amount of nitric acid Uberated each 
year, not much more than one-half is taken up by the crop. 

The wheat is ripe in July, at which time the land is tolerably 
free from weeds ; several months, therefore, occur during 
-which there is no vegetation to take up the nitric acid ; and 
even when the wheat is sown at the end of October, much ni- 
tric acid is liable to be washed away, as the power of the plant 
to take up food from the soil is very hmited until the spring. 

The formation of nitric acid, from the organic nitrogen in the 
soil, is due to the action of a minute plant, and goes on quite 
independent of the growth of our crops. We get, however, in 
the fact an explanation of the extremely different results ob- 
tained by the use of different manures. One farmer applies lime, 
or even ground limestone to a soil, and obtains an increase in 
his crops ; probably he has supplied the very substance which 
has enabled the nitrification of the organic nitrogen to increase; 
another applies potash, a third phosphates ; if either of these 
are absent, the crops cannot make use of the nitric acid, how- 
ever great may be the amount diffused through the soil. 

It may possibly bo said that the use of mineral manures tends 
to exhaust the soil of its nitrogen ; this may, or may not, be 
true ; but even if the minerals enable the crop to take up a 
larger amount of the nitric acid found in the soil year by year, 
this does not increase the exhaustion, as the minerals only tend 
to arrest that which otherwise might be washed away. 

We must look upon the organic nitrogen in the soil, as the 
main source of the nitrogen which grows our crops. Whatever 
may be the amount derived from the atmosphere, whether in 
rain, or dew ; or from condensation by the soil, or plants, it is 
probable that, where the land is in arable cultivation, the ni- 
trogen so obtained, is less than the amount washed out of the 
soil in nitric acid. Upon land which is never stirred by the 
plow, there is much less waste and much less activity. 

The large increase in the area of land laid down to perma- 
nent pasture in England, is not due alone to the fall in the price 
of grain. The reduction of fertility in many of the soils, which 
have been long under the plow, is beginning to bo apparent. 
Under these circumstances a less exhausting course of treat- 
ment becomes necessary, and pasture, with the production of 
meat, milk, and butter, takes the place of grain fields. 



APPENDIX. 



LETTER FROM EDWARD JESSOP, YORK, PA. 

York, Pa., March 16, 1876. 
Joseph Harris^ Esq., Mweton Farm, Bochester, N. Y. : 

Dear Sir— Your favor of the 22d of last month came safely to hand, 
BDd I am truly obliged to you for the reply to my question. — You ask, 
can I help you with facts or suggestions, on the subject of manure ? I 
fear not much ; but it may be useful to you to know what others need 
to know. I will look forward to the advent of "Talks on Manures" 
with much interest, hoping to get new hght on a subject second to none 
in importance to the farmer. 

I have done a little at composting for some years, and am now having 
a pile of about forty cords, made up of stable-manure and earth taken 
from the wash of higher lands, turned and fined. The labor of digging 
and hauling the earth, composting in thin layers with manure, turning, 
and fining, is so great, I doubt whether it pays for most farm crops — 
this to be used for mangel-wurzel and market-garden. 

The usual plan in this county is to keep the stable-manure made dur- 
ing winter, and the accumulation of the summer in the barn-yard, where 
it is soaked by rain, and trampled fine by cattle, and in August and Sep- 
tember is hauled upon ground to be seeded with wheat and grass-seeds. 
I do not think there is much piling and turning done. 

My own conclusions, not based on accurate experiments, however, 
are, that the best manure I have ever applied was prepared in a covered 
pit on which cattle were allowed to run, and so kept well tramped — 
some drainage into a well, secured by pouring water upon it, when 
necessary, and the drainage pumped and distributed over the surface, at 
short intervals, particularly the parts not well tramped, and allowed to 
remain until it became a homogeneous mass, which it will do without 
having undergone so active a fermentation as to have thrown off a con- 
siderable amount of gas. 

The next best, composting it with earth, as above described, piled 
about five or six feet high, turned as often as convenient, and kept moist 
enough to secure fermentation. 

Or, to throw all the manure as made into a covered pit, until it is 
thoroughly mixed and made fine, by allowing hogs to run upon it and 
root at will ; and when prepared for even spreading, apply it as a top- 
dressing on grass-land — at any convenient time. 

As to how many loads of fresh manure it takes to make one of well- 
rotted manure, it may be answered approximately, three to one, but that 
would depend a good deal on the manner of doing it, and the amount 
of rough material in it. If well trodden by cattle under cover, and suf- 
ficient drainage poured over it, to prevent any violent fermentation, the 
342 



APPENDIX. 



343 



loss of weight, I think, would not be very great, nor the bulk lessened 
over one-half. 

Many years ago an old and successful farmer said to me, " if you want 
to get the full benefit of manure, spread it as a top-dressing on some 
throwing crop,^^ and all my experience and observation since tend to con- 
firm the correctness of his advice. 

While on this subject, allow me to protest against the practice of 
naming the quantity of manure applied to a given space, as so many 
loads, as altogether too indefinite. The bushel or cord is a definite quan- 
tity, which all can understand. 

The average price of good livery stable horse-manure at this place has 
been for several years four dollars a cord. 

With two and a half miles to haul, I am trying whether keeping a flock 
of 50 breeding ewes, and feeding liberally with wheat bran, in addition 
to hay and pasture, will not produce the needed manure more cheaply. 
Respectfully yours, Edward Jessop. 

P. S. — Tou ask for the average weight of a cord of manure, such as we 
pay four dollars for. 

1 had a cord of horse-stable manure from a livery stable in York which 
had been all the time under cover, with several pigs running upon it, 
and was moist, without any excess of wet, loaded into a wagon-box 
holding an entire cord, or 128 cubic feet, tramped by the wagoner three 
times while loading. 

The wagon was weighed at our hay-scales before loading, and then the 
wagon and load together, with a net result for the manure of 4,-400 lbs. 
I considered this manure rather better than the average. I had another 
load, from a different place, which weighed over 5,000 lbs., but on ex- 
amination it was found to contain a good deal of coal ashes. We never 
buy by the ton. Harrison Bros. & Co., Manufacturing Chemists, Phila- 
delphia, rate barnyard-manure as worth $5.77 per ton, and say that would 
be about $7.21 per cord, which would be less than li tons to the cord. 
If thrown in loosely, and it happened to be very dry, that might be pos- 
sible. 

Waring, in his " Handy Book of Husbandry," page 201, says, he caused 
a cord of well-trodden livery stable manure containing the usual pro- 
portion of straw, to- be carefully weighed, and that the cord weighed 
7,080 lbs. 

The load 1 had weighed, weighing 4,400 lbs., was considered by the 
wagoner and by myself as a fair sample of good manure. In view of 
these wide differences, further trials would be desirable. Dana, in his 
"Muck Manual," says a cord of green cow-dung, pure, as dropped, 
weighs 9,289 lbs. 

Farmers here seldom draw manure with less than three, more generally 
with four horses or mules ; loading is done by the purchaser. From the 
barn-yard, put on loose boards, from 40 to 60 bushels are about an aver- 
age load. 

In hauling from town to a distance of three to five miles, farmers gen- 
erally make two loads of a cord each, a day's work. From the barn-yard^ 



344 TALKS ON MANURES. 

a very variable number, per day. In my own case, two men with three 
horses have been hauling six and seven loads of sixty bushels, fine com- 
post, a distance of from one-half to three-fourths of a mile, up a long 
and rather steep hill, and spreading from the wagon, as hauled, upon 
grass-sod. 

Our larger farmers often have one driver and his team, two wagons, 
one loading, while the other is drawn to the field ; the driver slips off 
one of the side-boards, and with his dung-hook draws off piles at nearly 
equal distances, to be spread as convenient. Edwabd Jessop. 

LETTER FKOM DR. E. L. STDRTEVAl^T, SOUTH FRAMINGHAM, MASS. 

South Framingham, Mass., April 2, 1876. 
Friend Harris— Manure about Boston is sold in various ways. First, 
according to the number of animals kept; price varying so much, that I 
do not venture to name the figures. By the cord, to be trodden over 
while loading ; never by weight, so far as I can learn— price from to 
$12.00 per cord, according to season, and various accidental circum- 
stances. During the past winter, manure has been given away in Boston, 
nandling, hauling to the railroad, and freight costing $4 per cord for 
carrying 30 miles out. Market-gardeners usually haul manure as a re- 
turn freight on their journeys to and from market. About South Fra- 
mingham, price stiff at $8 a cord in the cellar, and this may be considered 
the ruling suburban price. Very friendly yours, 

E. Lewis Stuetevant. 

letter erom m. c. weld. 

New York, Nov. 9, 1876. 
Mt Dear Harris — I don't know what I can write about manures, 
that would be of use. I have strong faith in humus, in ashes, leached 
and unleached, in lime, gas-lime, plaster, bones, ammonia ready formed, 
nitrates ready formed, not much in meat and blood, unless they are 
cheap. Nevertheless, they often are cheap, and produce splendid effects. 
I believe in sulphuric acid, with organic nitrogenous manures ; the com- 
posting of meat, blood, hair, etc., with peat and muck, and wetting it 
down with dilute sulphuric acid. I believe in green-manuring, heartily, 
and in tillage, tillage, tillage. Little faith in superphosphates and com- 
pounded manures, at selling prices. Habirshaw's guano is good enough. 
So much for my creed. Truly yours, M. C. "Weld. 

LETTER FROM PETER HENDERSOIST. 

New York, Oct. 26, 1876. 
31r. Joseph Harris: 

Dear Sir — If you will refer to my work " Gardening for Profit," New 
Edition, page 34, you will get about all the information 1 possess on 
Manures, except that I do not say anything about price. In a general 
way it might be safe to advise that whenever a ton (it is always best to 
speak of manures by weight) of either cow, horse, hog, or other stable- 
manure can be laid on the ground for $3, it is cheaper than commercial 
fertilizers of any kind at their usual market rates. This $3 per ton, I 



APPENDIX. 345 

think, would be about the average cost in New Yorlj, Boston, or Phila- 
delphia, We never haul it on the ground until we are ready to plow it 
in. If it has to be taken from the hog or cattle yards, we draw it out into 
large heaps, convenient to where it is to be put on the land, turning it, 
to keep it from burning or '' fire-fanging," if necessary. None of our 
farmers or market-gardeners here keep it under cover. The expense of 
Buch covering and the greater difficulties in getting at it, for the immense 
quantities we use, would be greater than the benefits to be derived from 
keeping it under cover— benefits, in fact, which, I think, may be greatly 
overrated. Very truly yours, Peter Henderson. 

LETTER FROM J. M. B. ANDERSON, ED. " CAJIADA FARMER," TORONTO. 

" Canada Farmer '♦ Office, Toronto, March 29, 1876. 
J. Harris, Esq. : 

Dear Sir— Tours of the 25th Inst, is to hand, and I shall be most 
happy to render you any assistance in my power. The work you under- 
take is in able hands, and I have every confidence that, when completed, 
it will form an invaluable acquisition to the agricultural literature of the 
day. 

Manure in this city is usually sold by the two-horse load— about Ih 
tons— at the rate of $1 per load, or 66 cents per ton. The load contains 
just about a cord of manure, consequently a cord will weigh about 1? tons. 

With reference to the general management of manure in Canada, I may 
say that the system followed differs in no material respect from that of 
New York and the other Eastern States. It is usually kept over winter 
in the open bam yard (rarely under cover, I am sorry to say), laid out on 
the land about the time of disappearance of last snow, and plowed in. 
In some cases it is not carted out until the land is ready for immediate 
plowing. With some of our more advanced farmers, the system has 
lately been adopted of keeping manure under cover and sprinkling it 
thoroughly at intervals with plaster and other substances. Tanks are 
also beeoraing more common than formerly, for the preservation of liq- 
uid manure, which is usually applied by means of large, perforated hogs- 
heads, after the manner of street-watering. 

You ask, how the manure is managed at Bow Park, Brantford. That 
made during fall and winter is carefully kept in as small bulk as possible, 
to prevent exposure to the weather. In February and March it is drawn 
out and put in heaps 8 feet square, and well packed, to prevent the es- 
scape of ammonia. In spring, as soon as practicable, it is spread, and 
plowed under immediately. Manure made in spring and summer is 
spread on the field at once, and plowed under with a good, deep furrow 

Very truly yours, J. M. B. Anderson, Ed. Canada Farmer. 

MANURE STATISTICS OF LONG ISLAND. 

THE MANURE TRADE OF LONO ISLAND— LETTER FROM J. H. RUSHMORE. 

Old Westburt, Long Island, April 6, 1876. 
Joseph Harris, Esq. : 

Dear Sir — The great number of dealers in manure in New York pre- 



346 TALKS ON MANURES. 

eludes accuracy, yet Mr, Skidmore (who has been testifying volumi* 
nously before the New York Board of Health in relation to manure and 
street dirt), assures me that the accompanying figures are nearly correct. 
I enclose statement, from two roads, taken from their boolvs, and the 
amount shipped over the other road I obtained verbally from the General 
Freight Agent, and embody it in the sheet of statistics. 

The Ash report I k7ww is correct, as I had access to the books showing 
the business, for over ten years. I have made numerous applications, 
verbally, and by letter, to our largest market gardeners, but there seems 
to exist a general and strong disinclination to communicate anything 
worth knowing. I enclose the best of the replies received. Speaking 
for some of our largest gardeners, I may say that they cultivate over one 
hundred acres, and use land sufficiently near to the city to enable them 
to dispense with railroad transportation in bringing manure to their 
places and marketing crops. I have noticed that one of the shrewdest 
gardeners Invariably composts horn-shavings and bone-meal with horse- 
manure several months before expecting to use it. A safe average of 
manure used per acre by gardeners, may be stated at ninety (90) tubs, 
and from two hundred to twenty hundred pounds of fertilizer in addi- 
tion, according to its strength, and the kind of crop. 

The following railroad manure statistics will give a generally correct 
idea of the age of manure, when used : 

STATEMENT OP MANURE SENT FKOM JAN. 1 TO DEC. 31, 1875. 

Over F. N. 8. & C. R. It. Over Southern B. B. 

January 1,531 tubs. 5,815 tubs. 

February 4,357 " 



March 740 

April 12,122 

May 7,383 

June 5,725 

July 6,473i 

August 6,870i 

September 8,197 

October 880 

November 512 

December 1,406 



12,217 

7,055 

3,049 

1,365 

685 

2,911 

14,702 

060 

840 

4,023 



46,340 tubs. 57,679 tubs. 

A tub is equal to 14 bushels. 

Hobson, Hurtado & Co. report the amount of Peruvian guano sold in 
this country last year at thirty thousand tons. 

Estimated number of horses in New York city, 100,000, 

Estimated product of manure per horse. Four cords. 

Estimated proportion of straw to pure excrement. One-half. 

Amount shipped direct from stables. Nearly all. 

Amount shipped on vessels. One-half. 

Length of time the unshipped manure remains in heaps. From three 
to four months. 

Average cost per horse, annually. S3. 

Greatest distance of shipment Virginia. 



APPENDIX. 347 

Average amount shipped via L. I. R, R. 60,000 tubs. 

Price of manure per tub delivered on cars or vessel. 80 cents. 

Average amount put on car. 40 tubs. 

Statistics of Ash Trade. — Time when ashes are delivered. From 
middle of June to middle of October. 

Places from which they are mostly shipped. Montreal, Belleville, and 
Toronto (Canada). 

Method of transportation. Canal boats. 

Average load per boat. About 8,000 bushels. 

Average amount annually sold. 360,000 bushels. 

Average cost delivered to farmers. 20i cents per bushel. 

Rr Acre, about. 

Amount used by fanners for potatoes 60 tubs. 

'' " " ." " cabbage (late).... 50 " 
" " " " " corn 13 " 

Amount of guano used on Long Island, as represented by the books 
of Chapman & Vanwyck, and their estimate of sales by other firms, 
5,000 tons. 

The fertilizers used on the Island are bought almost exclusively by 
market gardeners or farmers, who do a little market gardening, as it is 
the general conviction that ordinary farm-crops will not give a compen- 
sating return for their application. Most market gardeners keep so 
little stock that the manure made on the place is very inconsiderable. 
Our dairy farmers either compost home-made manures with that from 
the city, spread it on the land for corn in the spring, or rot it separate, 
to use in the fall for wheat, on land that has been cropped with oats the 
same year. The manure put on for potatoes is generally estimated to 
enrich the land sufficient for it to produce one crop of winter grain, and 
from five to seven crops of grass, when it is again plowed and cultivated 
in rotation with, first, com, second, potatoes or oats, and is reseeded in 
autumn of the same year. 

Fish and fish guano are largely used on land bordering the water, and 
adjacent to the oil-works. The average price for guano in bulk at oil- 
works is $13 per ton. The average price for fish on wharf is .$1.50 per 
thousand, and it is estimated that, as a general average, 6,000 fish make 
a ton of guano. The fish, when applied to corn, are placed two at each 
hill, and plowed under at any time after the corn is large enough to cul- 
tivate. Seaweed is highly prized by ail who use it, and it will produce 
a good crop of com when spread thickly on the land previous to plowing. 

Very respectfully, J. H. Rushmore. 

LETTER FROM JOHN E. BACKUS. 

Newtown, Long Island, N. Y., March 2nd, 1876. 

Mr. G. H. Rushmore: 

Dear Sir.— Some farmers and market-gardeners use more, and some 
less, manure, according to crops to be raised. I use about 30 good two- 
horse wagon-loaus to the acre, to be applied in rows or broad-casted, as 
best for certain crops. I prefer old horse-dung for most all purposes. 



348 TALKS ON MANURES. 

Guano, as a fertilizer, phosphate of bone and blood are very good ; they 
act as a stimulant on plants and vegetation, and are highly beneficial to 
some vegetation— more valuable on poor soil than elsewhere, except to 
produce a thrifty growth in plant;^ and to insure a large crop. 

By giving you these few items they vary considerably on different 
parts of the Island ; judgment must be used in all cases and all busi- 
ness. Hoping these few lines may be of some avail to Mr. Harris and 
yourself, I remain, yours, etc., John E. Backus. 

MANURE IN PHILADELPHIA. 

LETTER FROM JOSEPH HEACOCK. 

Jenkintown, Montgomery Co., Pa., April 18th, 1876. 

Mt Dear Friend Harris.— Stable-manure in Philadelphia, costs by 
the single four-horse-load, about $9 or $10. Mostly, the farmers who 
haul much of it, have it engaged by the year, and then it can be had for 
from $7 to $8 per load. Mostly, four horses are used, though we fre- 
quently see two and three-horse teams, and occasionally, five or six 
horses are used. I have never seen any kind of dung hauled but that of 
horses. Cow-manure would be thought too heavy to haul so long a dis- 
tance. Sugar-house waste, spent hops, glue waste, etc, are hauled to a 
email extent. We live about 9 miles from the center of the city, and the 
road is very hilly, though otherwise a good one, being made of stone. 

The loads vary from 2i to oh or 4 tons for four horses, according to 
the dryness of the manure. The wagons are made very strong, and weigh 
from 1,600 lbs. to 2,300 or 2,400 lbs., according to the number of horses 
that are to be used to them. I cannot say how many cords there are in 
an average load, but probably not less than two cords to four horses. 
One of my neighbors has a stable engaged by the year. He pays $2.50 
per ton, and averages about three tons per load, and the distance from 
the stable in the city to his place, can not be less than 12 miles. His 
team goes empty one way and of course can not haul more than a load 
a day. In fact, can not average that, as it would be too hard on his 
horses. The horses used for the purpose are large and strong. Fifteen 
or twenty years ago, there was kept on most farms of 75 to 100 acres, a 
team purposely for hauling manure from the city. But it is different 
now, many of the farmers using artificial manures, as it costs so much 
less ; and others are keeping more stock, and so making their own 
manure. Still, there is a great deal hauled yet. And some of it to a 
distance of 20 miles. Though whev; hauled to this distance, the teams 
are loaded both ways. For instance, they will start to the city with a 
load of hay (35 to 50 cwt.), on Monday afternoon (Tuesday is the day of 
the Hay Market) ; and when they have their load of hay off on Tuesday, 
they load their manure and drive out five or six miles and put up for the 
night. Next morning they start about 3 o'clock, arriving home before 
noou, having been away two days. On Thursday afternoon, they start 
again. You can see that manuring in this way is very expensive. But 
farmers about here well know that if they do not manure well they raise 



APPENDIX. * 349 

but little. Probably about four loads are used per acre on the average. 
Each load is generally thrown off the wagon in one large heap near 
where wanted, and is allowed to lie until they use it. I can not tell 
how much it loses in bulk by lying in the heap. 

As to what crops it is used on, farmers do not think that they could 
go amiss in applying it to anything except oats. But it is probably used 
more for top-dressing mowing land, and for potatoes, than for any- 
thing else. 

The usual rotation is corn, potatoes, or oats, wheat seeded to clover 
and timothy, and then kept in grass from two to four years. Those who 
haul stable-manure, usually use bone-dust or superphosphate to a greater 
or less extent. 

Last December I built a pig-pen, 20 ft. x40 ft., li stories high. The 
upper story to be used for litter, etc. There is a four feet entry on the 
north side, running the length of the building. The remainder is divided 
into five pens, each 8,ft. x 16 ft. It is made so that in cold weather it can 
be closed up tight, while in warmer weather it can be made as open as 
an out-shed. I am very much pleased with it. The pigs make a great 
deal of manure, and I believe that it can be made much cheaper than 
it can be bought and hauled from Philadelphia. 

Joseph Heacock, Jb. 

letter fkom herman l. routzabo?. 

MiDDLETOVTN, Md., May Uth, 1876. 
Joseph Harris, Esq. : 

I herewith proceed to answer questions asked. 

Wheat and corn are principal crops. Corn is fed now altogether to 
stock for the manure. 

There is but little soiling done. The principal method of making 
manure is : Feeding all the com raised, as well as hay, oats, and roots, 
to cattle ; using wheat straw, weeds, etc., as bedding, throwing the 
manure in the yard (uncovered), and to cover the pile with plaster (by 
sowing broadcast), at least once a week. To this pile is added the 
manure from the hog-pens, hen-house, etc., and worked over thoroughly 
at least twice before using. It Is then applied to com by plowing 
und^r ; to wheat, as a top-dressing. For corn it is usually hauled to the 
field, thrown off in heaps 25 feet each way, a cart-load making two heaps. 
Spread just before the plow. For wheat, spread on directly after plow- 
ing, and thoroughly harrowed^P- Applied broadcast for potatoes. Com- 
posts of different kinds are made and used same as in other localities, 1 
presume. Artificial manures are going into disrepute (justly too). This 
is the plan now adopted by the farmers in this county (Frederick). 
Where woods are accessible, leaves and mould are hauled in and added to 
the manure-heap ; in fact, every substance that can be worked into the 
manure-heap is freely used. Well-rotted stable-manure is worth from 
$1.50 to $2.50 per cord, according to condition and locality. 
Very Respectfully Yours, 

Herman L. Rodtzahn. 



350 TALKS ON MANURES. 

letter from prof. e. m. shelton, prof. of agriculture, kansas 
state agricultural college. 

Kansas Sta,te Agricultural College, 

Manhattan, Kansas, May 5, 1876. 

Dear Sir. — ^In reply to your first question, I would sny that stable- 
manure in this vicinity, is held in very li^ht estimation. Indeed, by the 
householders of this city, and quite generally by the farmers, manure is re- 
garded as one of those things — like drouth and grasshoppers — with which 
a mysterious Providence sees fit to clog the operations of the husband- 
man. The great bulk of the stable-manure made in this city is, every 
spring, carted into ravines and vacant lots — wherever, in short, with 
least expense it can be put out of reach of the senses. 

It must not be understood by this that manure has little influence on 
the growing crops in Kansas. Nowhere have I seen such excellent 
results from application of home-made fertilizers, as in Kansas. For 
those sterile wastes known as "Alkali lands," and "Buffalo wallows,'* 
manure is a speedy and certain cure. During two years of severe drouth, 
I have noticed that wherever manure had been supplied, the crop with- 
stood the effects of dry weather much better than where no application 
had been made. Four years ago, a strip across one of our fields was 
heavily manured ; this year this field is into wheat, and a dark band that 
may be seen half a mile shows where this application was made. 

These facts the better class of our farmers are beginning to appreciate. 
A few days ago, a neighbor, a very intelligent farmer, assured me that 
from manuring eight to ten acres every year, his farm was now in better 
condition than when be broke up the prairie fifteen years ago. 

I know of no analysis of stable or farmyard-manure made in 
Kansas. Concerning the weight of manures, I can give you a few facts, 
having had occasion during the past winter to weigh several loads used 
for experimental purposes. This manure was wheeled into the barnyard, 
chiefly from the cattle stalls, during the winter of 1874-5. It lay in the 
open yard until February last, when it was weighed and hauled to the 
fields. I found that a wagon-box, li x3 x9 feet, into which the manure 
was pitched, without treading, held with slight variations, when level 
full, one ton. At this rate a cord would weigh very close to three tons. 

The greatest difiiculty that we have to encounter in the management 
of manure grows out of our dry summers. 4«Dnring our summer months, 
unless sufficient moisture is obtained, the manure dries out rapidly, be- 
comes fire-fanged and practically worthless. My practice upon the Col- 
lege farm has been to give the bottom of the barn-yard a " dishing '* 
form, so that it holds all the water that falls upon it. The manure I 
keep as flat as possible, taking pains to place it where the animals will 
keep it trod down solid. I have adopted this plan after having tried 
composting and piling the manure in the yards, and am satisfied that it 
Is the orc^y practical way to manage manures in this climate. 

There is no particular crop to which manure is generally applied 



APPENDIX. 351 

in this State, unless, perhaps, wheat. The practice of applying manure as 
a top-dressing to winter- wheat, is rapidly gaining ground here. It is 
found that the manure thus applied, acting as a mulch, mitigates the 
effects of drouth, besides improving the quality of the grain. 
Very Respectfully Yours, 

E. M. Shelton. 

letteb from peof. w. h. brewer, professor of agriculture in 
sheffield scientific school of yale college. 

Sheffield Scientific School of Tale College, 

New Haven, Conn., AprU 14th, 1876. 
Joseph Hari'is, Esq.^ Hochester, N. Y. : 

My Dear Sir.— I have made inquiries relating to " the price of stable- 
manure in New Haven, and how far the farmers and gardeners haul it, 
etc." I have not been to the horse-car stables, but I have to several 
livery stables, and they are all essentially the same. 

They say that but little is sold by the co7'd or ton, or by any weight or 
measure. It is sold either "in the lump," " by the month," "by the 
year," or " per horse." Some sell it at a given sum per month for all 
their horses, on a general estimate of their horses — thus, one man says, 
*'Iget, this year, $25 per mouth for ail my manure, he to remove it as 
fast as it accumulates ; say one, two, or three times per weeli. He hauls 
it about five miles and composts it all before using." 

Another says, he sells per horse. " I get, this year, $13 per horse, 
they to haul it." The price per horse ranges from $10 to $15 per 
year, the latter sum being high. 

From the small or private stables, the manure is generally " lumped " 
by private contract, and is largely used about the city. It is hauled 
sometimes as much as 10 miles, but usually much less. 

But the larger stables often sell per shipment— it is sent by cars 
up the Connecticut Valley to Westfield, etc., where it is often hauled 
several miles from the railroad or river. 

Much manure is sent by boat from New York to the Connecticut 
Valley tobacco lands. Boats (" barges ") are even loaded in Albany, go 
down the Hudson, up the Sound to Connecticut, to various places near 
Hartford, I am told. Two or three years ago, a man came here and 
exhibited to us pressed masses of manure — a patent had been talsen out 
for pressing it, to send by R. R. (stable manure). I never heard anything 
more about it— and he was confident and enthusiastic about it. 

Tours truly, Wm. H. Brewer. 



352 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



FOOD, INCREASE, MANURE, ETC., OF FATTENING ANIMALS. 

The following table is given by Mr. J. B. Lawes, of Rothamsted, Eng- 
land, showing the relation of the' increase, manure, and loss by respirar 
lion, to the food consumed by dlSerent animals : 



Nitrogenous substance. 
Non-Nitrogenous sub- 
stance 

Mineral Matter 

Total dry substance 



250 lbs. Oil-cake'] 

^^^ -Clover. L^,^,^^ 

2o00ibs. Swede r^reL 
ticrnips and ^^rease. 
supply. J 



lbs. 
218 



83 
1109 



S^ 



^B. " 



58.0 

1.6 

68.6 



I to (3 

So. 



M IM D, 



lbs. 
32^3.0 



81.4 
104.4 



lbs. 
636-^ 

636 



100 Total Dry Sub- 
stance of Food 
supply. 



M ^ 



0.8, 

5-2! 
0.2 
6.2 






7.4 
36.5 



57 3- 



Hi 



4.1 

7.2 
1.9 





250 lbs. Oil-cake-] 

turnips and ^'^^'6«««- 
supply. J 


100 Total Dry Sub- 
stance of Food 
sujiply. 


ill 




1 


«a6 

^:-i 
5i" 


c3 6 


si. 


, 05 




11^ 

60.1-j 

66!i 


111 


Nitrogenous substance. 
Non-Nitrogenous sub- 


1bs. 

177 

671 


lbs. 
7.5 

fi.*? oC 


lbs. 

229 -j 

62 
291 


lbs. 

548.5-! 

.... 

548.5 


0.8) 

IV 

8.0 


25.1 

6.8 
31.9 


4.2 
9.4 


Mineral matter 


64 12 


3.1 


Total dry substance. . . . 


912 


72.5 





Nitrogenous substance, 
Non - Nitrogenous sub 

stance 

Mineral matter 

Total dry substance 




APPENDIX. 



353 



In the last edition of his book on Manure, * ' Praktische Dungerlehre," 
Dr. Erail Wollf, gives the following tables : 

Of 100 lbs. of dry substance in the food, there is found in the excre- 
ments : 



Dry Substancb. 


Cow. 


Ox. 


Sheep. 


Horse. 


Mean. 


In the Dung 


38.0 lbs. 4.").6 lbs. 46.9 lbs. 


42.0 lbs. 

3.6 '' 

45.6 " 


4;i.l lbs. 


In the Urine 


9.1 " 
47.1 " 


5.8 " 6.6 " 


6.3 " 


Total dry substance in the Manure. . . 


51.4 " 


53.5 " 


49.4 " 



Of 100 lbs. of organic substance in the food, there is found in the ex- 
crements : 



Organic Substance. 



Cow. 



Ox. 



Sheep. 



In the Dung 136.5 lbs. '43.9 lbs. 45.6 lbs. 

In the Urine I 6.0 " j 3.3 " j 3.9 " 

Total organic substance in Manure. J42.5 " 47.1 " 149.5 " 



Horse. 



Mean. 



38.2 lbs. 
2.5 " 

40.7 " 



41.0 lbs. 

3.9 " 

144.9 " 



Of 100 lbs. of nitrogen in the food, there is found in the excrements ; 



Nitrogen. 


Cow. 


Ox. 


Sheep. 


Horse. 


Mean. 


In the Dung 

In the Urine 

Total Nitrogen in Manure 


45 5 lbs. !51 lbs. 43.7 lbs. 

IF,;^. '■• 38.6 '• 151.8 " 
63.8 " 189.6 " i95.5 " 


56.1 lbs. 49.1 lbs. 

27.3 " .34.0 " 

83.4 " 83.1 " 



Of 100 lbs. mineral matter in the food, there is found in the excrements : 



Mineral Matter. 


Cow. 


Ox. 


Sheep. 

63.2 IbsT 

40.3 " 

103.5 " 


Horse. 


Mean. 


In the Dung 

In the Urine 


53.9 lbs. 
43.1 " 


70.8 lbs. 
46.7 " 

117.5 " 


85.6 ibs. 
18.3 " 

101.9 " 


68.4 lbs. 
35.1 " 


Total mineral matter in Ma- 
nure 


97.0 " 


103.5 '* 



The excess of mineral matter is due to the mineral matter in the 
water drank by the animals. 

The following tables of analyses are copied in full from the 
last edition (1875), of Dr. Emil Wolff's Praktische Dungerlehre. 

The figures differ materially in many cases from those previously 
published. They represent the average results of numerous relia- 
ble analyses, and are sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes 
connected with the subject of manures. In special cases, it will be 
well to consult actual analyses of the articles to be used. 



354 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



I.— TABLES FOR CALCULATING THE EXHAUSTION AND EN- 
RICHING OF SOILS. 



A.— HAEVEST PEODUCTS AND VAEIOUS MANUFACTUEED AETICLES. 
Average quantity of water, nitrogen, and total ash, and the different ingredi- 
ents of the ash in 1000 lbs. of fresh or air-dried substance. 



Substance. 



L-Hay. 

Meadow Hay 

Eye Grass 

Timothy 

Moharhay 

Eed Clover 

Bed Clover, ripe. 

White Clover 

Alsike Clover 

Crimson Clover.. 

Lucern 

Esparsette 

Yellow Clover 

Green Vetch Hay. 
Green Pea Hay.., 
Spurry 



II,— Green Fodder. 

Meadow Grass in bloom 

Young Grass 

Eye Grass 

Timothy Grass 

Eje-Fodder 

Green Oats 

Green C(*n-Fodder 

Sorghnm 

Moharhay ... 

Eed clover in blossom 
" " before " 

White Clover 

Alsike Clover 

Crimson Clover 

Lucern 

Esparsette 

Yellow Clover 

Green Vetch 

Green Peas 

Green Rape 

Spurry — 

III.— EooT Crops. 



Potatoes 

Jerusalem Artichoke... 

Mangel-wurzel 

Sugar Beets 

Turnips 

Carrots 

Eussia Turnips 

Succory 

Sugar Beet, upper part 
of root 





. 






^ 


1 


i^ 


§ 


143 


15.5 


143 


16.3 


143 


15.5 


m 


17.3 


KiO 


19.7 


150 


12.5 


165 


23.2 


KiO 


24.0 


107 


19.5 


100 


23.0 


167 


21.3 


167 


22.1 


167 


22.7 


167 


22.9 


167 


19.2 


700 


5.4 


800 


5.6 


734 


57 


100 


5.4 


700 


5.3 


>J10 


3.7 


822 


1.9 


773 


4.0 


700 


5.9 


780 


5.1 


8;50 


5.3 


805 


5.6 


820 


5.3 


815 


4.3 


740 


7.2 


800 


5.1 


830 


4.5 


820 


5.6 


815 


5.1 


870 


4.6 


800 


3.7 


750 


3.4 


800 


3.2 


880 


1.8 


815 


1.6 


920 


1.8 


850 


2.2 


870 


2.1 


800 


2.5 


840 


2.0 



51.5 
58.2 
62.1 
58.4 
56.9 
44.0 
59.8 
39.7 
50.7 
62.1 
45.8 
55.7 
83.7 
62.4 
50.8 



18.1 

20.7 
20.4 
21.6 
16.3 
18.8 
12.0 
13.0 
13.9 
13.7 
14.5 
13.6 
8.8 
12.2 
18.7 
12.1 
14.7 
18.1 
13.9 
12.2 I 
12 2 



9.4 

9.8 
7.5 
7.1 
7.3 
7.8 
11.6 
6.7 



13.2 
20.2 
20.4 
21.2 
18.3 
9.8 
10.1 
110 
11.7 
15.3 
13.0 
11.9 
28.3 
23.2 
19.9 



4.6 
11.6 
7.2 
7.4 
6.3 
7.5 
4.3 
3.6 
5.0 
4.4 
5.3 
2.3 
2.4 
2.8 
4.6 
3.4 
3.2 
6.1 
5.1 
4.0 
4.3 



5.7 
4.7 
4.1 
3.9 
3.3 
2.8 
4,7 
2.6 



9.6 i 2.8 



8.6 

4.3 

4.5 

6.1 

20.0 

15.6 

19.3 

18.5 

16.0 

26.2 

16.8 

32.6 

22.8 

15.6 

10.9 



3.0 
2.2 
1.5 
1.6 
1.2 
1.2 
1.6 
1.2 
1.4 
4.8 
4.2 
4.4 
3.0 
3.8 
7.9 
4.4 
8.6 
4.9 
3.5 
2.7 
2.3 



0.2 
0.3 
0.3 
0.4 
0.8 
0.9 
1.3 
0.5 

0.9 









4.1 
6.2 
7.2 
3.4 
5.6 
4.3 
8.4 
4.0 
3.6 
5.5 
4.6 
4.3 
10.7 
6.8 
8.4 



0.3 0.6 

0.5 I 0.8 

0.3 0.9 

0.4 1.0 

0.3 I 1.7 

0.3 I 0.8 

1.1 i 1.2 



APPENDIX. 



355 



Substance. 



IV".— Leaves & Stems 
OF Root Crops. 

Potato Vines, nearly 

ripe 

Potato Vines, unripe. 
Jerusalem Artichoke. 

Mangel-wurzel 

Sugar Beets 

Tur;iips 

Carrots 

Succory 

Russia Turnips 

Cabbage, white 

Cabbage Stems 



v.— MANtrPACTtTRED 

Products & Refuse. 



Wheat Bran 

Rye Bran 

Barloy Bran 

Oat Hulls 

Pea Brau 

Buckwheat Bran 

Wheat Flour 

Rye Flour 

Barley Meal 

Corn Meal 

Green Malt 

Dry Malt 

Brewer's Grains...... 

Beer 

Malt-sprouts 

Potato Fibre 

Potato Slump 

Sugar-beet Pomace... 

Clarifying Refuse 

Sugar-beet Molasses. 

Molasses Slump 

Rape cake 

Linseed Oil-cake 

Poppy-cake 

Beech-nut-cake 

Walnut-cake 

Cotton-seed-cake — 

Cocoanut-cake 

Palm-oil-cake 



VI.— Straw. 

Winter Wheat 

Winter Spelt 

Winter Rye 

Spring Wheat 

Spring Rye 

Barley 

Oats 

Indian Corn-stalks. 
Buckwheat Straw . 

Pea Straw, 

Field Bean 

Garden Bean 

Common Vetch.... 



143 

143 

143 

143 

143 

143 

143 

150 

160 

i 160 

160 

I 160 

' 160 



4.9 
6.3 

5.3 
3.0 
3.0 
3.0 
5.1 



2.4 
1.8 



22.4 
23.2 
23.7 



27.2 
18.9 
16.8 
16.0 
16.0 
10.4 
16.0 
7.8 

36.8 

1.3 

1.6 

2.9 

08 

12.8 

3.2 

48.5 

45.3 

52.0 

38.1 

55.3 

3!).0 

37.4 

25.9 



4.8 
40 
4.0 
5.6 
5.6 
6.4 
5.6 
4.8 
13.0 
10.4 
16.3 

12.0 



19.7 
16.5 
».5 
14.1 
18.1 
11.9 
26.0 
16.5 
25.3 
16.0 
11.6 



53.5 
71.4 
48 4 
34.7 
22.7 
34.6 

7.2 
16.9 
20.0 

5.9 
14.6 
26.6 
11.7 

6.2 
66.7 

1.8 

5.0 
11.4 

3.3 
82.3 
14.0 
54.6 
50.8 
76.9 
43.3 
46.2 
58.4 
55.1 



46.1 
50.1 
40.5 
38.1 
46.6 
41.3 
40.4 
41.9 
51.7 
44.0 
43.9 
40.0 
44.1 



4.3 
4.4 
3.1 
4.1 
6.5 
2.8 
2.9 
4.3 
3.7 
6.3 
5.1 



14.3 

19-3 

8.1 

4.9 

10.3 

11.2 

2.6 

6.5 

5.8 

1.7 

2.5 

4.6 

0.5 

2.1 

20.6 

0.3 

2.2 

3.9 

0.3 

57.5 

11.0 

12.4 

12.4 

2.3 

6.5 

14.3 

14.6 

22.4 

5.0 



6.3 
5.2 

7,8 
11.0 
11.2 
9.4 
8.9 
9.'6 
24.2 
10.1 
18.0 
12.8 
6.3 



0.4 
0.3 
0.2 
2.9 
2.7 
1.1 
5.2 
2.9 
1.0 
0.9 
0.6 



0.2 
1.0 
0.7 
0.3 
0.2 
0.7 
0.1 
0.3 
0.5 
0.2 



0.1 
0.6 
1.2 

0.4 
0.9 
0.1 I 
10.0 
1.5 
1.8 I 
0.7 
2.3 ! 
4 



1.3 
0.2 



0.6 

0.3 
09 
1.0 

i".7 
1.2 
6.1 
1 1 
1.8 
1.1 
3.2 
6.9 



3.3 

2.4 
1.3 
1.3 
2.7 
0.5 
0.9 
0.4 
1.0 
0.6 
0.5 



8.8 
11.3 
3.0 
1.0 
2.2 
4.6 
0.4 
1.4 
2.7 
0.9 
1.2 
2.2 
1.0 



0.2 


0.4 


1.9 


1.8 


0.9 


0.1 


0.3 


4 ; 


2.6 


0.7 


1.1 


0.2 


4.7 


0.3 


0.2 




6.8 


7.0 


4.3 


8.1 


27.0 


6 2 


13.2 


3.6 


3 1 


5.6 


2.7 


8.9 


2.6 


1.6 


3.1 


4.5 


2.7 


1.1 


2.9 


1.2 


3.5 


1.1 


2.6 


0.9 


4.2 


1.8 


3.2 


1.1 


3.6 


1.6 


4.0 


2.6 


9.5 


19 


16.2 


3.5 


9.8 


3.3 


11.1 


2.5 


15.6 


3.7 






1.6 
1.2 
0.7 

0.8 
1.3 
0.9 
1.2 
1.0 
2.6 
1.4 
2.4 



27.3 

3^.3 

8.9 

1.6 

3.1 

12.5 

3.7 

8.5 

9.5 

2.6 

5.3 

9.7 

4.1 

2.0 

18.0 

0.4 

1.0 

1.1 

0.2 

0.5 

0.1 

19.2 

16.1 

31.2 

9.7 

20.2 

28.1 

14.9 

11.0 



2.2 ! 1.1 31.2 
2.6 i 1.2 36.0 
2.1 ! 1.1 2->.9 



0.9 
1.2 

3.0 
0.5 
0.7 
0.5 
2.9 
0.6 
2.6 
0.2 
0.2 



0.5 
1.4 
23.6 
23.3 
0.9 
0.7 



4.8 
8.8 
4.6 
0.6 
14.7 
0.1 
0.2 
0.9 
0.7 
0.3 

28 
6.4 
4.5 
0.8 
0.7 
2.3 
1.9 
0.8 



2.0 

3.0 

1.9 

1.9 

5.3 

6:1 

3.5 2.7 

3:2 1.6 

3.9 I 1.7 ! 

2.7 3.3 



1.2 18 2 

1.2 26.1 
1.5 21.5 

1.3 19.6 
1.2 11.7 
2.7 2.9 
2.7 3.0 

3.2 
1.9 
3.6 



356 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



Substance. 



Lupine 

Rape 

Poppy 

VII.— Chaff. 

Winter Wheat 

Spring Wheat 

Winter Spelt 

Winter Rye 

Barley Awns 

Oats 

Indian Corn-cobs 

Field Beaas 

Lupine 

Rape 

Flax-seed hulls 

Vni. — COMMKRCIAL 

Plants, etc. 

Flax Stems 

Rotted Flax Stems.... 

Flax Fibre 

Hemp Stems 

Hops, entire plant.... 

Hops . .. 

Hop Stems 

Tobacco Leaves 

Wine and Must 

Wine-grounds 

Grape Stems, etc 

Mulberry Leaves 

IX.— Materials foe 
Bedding. 

Reed 

Sedge Grass 

Rush 

Beech Leaves, August. 

" " Autumn. 

Oak Leaves, August.. 

" '• Autumn. 

Fir Needles 

Pine " 

Moss 

Fern 

Heath 

Broom 

Sea-Weed 

X.— Grains and 
Seeds. 

Winter Wheat 

Spring Wheat.. 

Spelt, without husk... 

Spelt, witli husk 

Winter Rye 

Winter Barley 

Spring Barley 

Oats 

Millet 

Indian Corn 



7.2 
7.5 
5.6 
5.8 
4.8 
6.4 
2.3 
16.8 
7.2 
6.4 



8.0 
5.0 



450 .. 

250 1 ... 

250 : ... 

200 1 10.0 
250 



150 



14.0 



144; 20.8 
14:5 20.5 
14312-2.0 
148 i 16.0 
143 17 6 
145 1 16.0 
143 16.0 

143 19.2 
140 [20.3 

144 16.0 



41.4 
40.8 
48.7 



92.5 
121.4 
82.7 
84.0 
120.0 
71.2 
4.6 
54.5 
18.1 
73.2 



8.0 
11.1 

18.4 



8.5 
4.^ 
7.9 
5.3 
9.4 
4.6 
2.4 

35.3 
8.7 

11.8 



54.7 15.4 



30.4 9.4 

7.0 0.3 
6.S i 0.3 

33.2 I 4.6 

81.4 20.1 

66.8 23.0 

40.7 11.4 

151.0 i30.3 

2.1 I 1.3 



13. 

13.0 

16.3 



36.7 
61.2 
48.1 
19.0 
58.5 
15.8 
41.7 
18.4 
32.0 
19.2 
50.7 
16.6 
13.6 
122.3 



16.9 
18.3 
14.2 
36.6 
17.9 
17.0 
22.2 
27.0 
29.8 
13.0 



6.1 
4.0 
3.9 



6.8 

17.7 

19.0 

3.7 

2.3 

5.4 

1.4 

1.0 

0.6 

2.6 

J8.0 

2.1 

4.8 

15.9 



5.3 
5.5 
5.1 
5.7 
5.6 
2.0 
4.5 
4.4 
3.4 
3.7 



14.8 
11.6 
14.7 



1.8 
4.0 
2.0 
3.5 
12.7 
4.0 
0.2 
6.8 
3.6 
36.3 
15.4 



6.8 

3.6 

3.6 

20.3 

18.1 

11.1 

12.6 

62.8 

0.1 

2.9 

4.5 

5.4 



3.3 
4.2 
3.6 
6.4 

26.4 
4.1 

20.3 
6.1 
4.3 
2.2 
6.2 
3.6 
2.2 

16.7 



0.6 

0.5 
0.4 
1.0 
0.5 
O.'i 
0.6 
1.0 
0.2 
0.3 



i 

3.6 
2.5 
3.1 



1.2 
1.5 
2.1 
1.2 
1.6 
1.5 
0.2 
5.9 
1.5 
4,2 
3.3 



2.0 
0.2 
0.3 
2.4 
6.4 
3.7 
2.7 
17.7 
0.1 
0.7 
0.7 
1.0 



1.1 
2.9 
3.1 
1.4 
3.5 
2.1 
1.7 
1.1 
0.5 
1.1 
3.5 
1.6 
1.6 
10.0 



2.0 

2.2 
1.7 
2.4 
2.1 
2.1 
1.9 
1.9 
2.9 
2.0 



-^-^ 

^^ 
ft. 

3.7 
2.4 
1.6 



4.0 
3.1 
6.1 
5.6 
2.4 
1.3 
0.2 
2.7 
1.1 
3.4 
4.5 



4.0 
0.8 
0.7 
2.3 
7.5 
11.2 
4.4 
4.8 
0.4 
2.5 
1.6 
1.3 



2.3 
4.6 
4.3 
1.8 
2.4 
1.9 
3.5 
1.0 
1.4 
0.9 
4.2 
1.1 
1.1 
3.8 



7.9 
8.9 
6.0 
7.6 
8.4 
5.6 
7.7 
6.2 
5.9 
5.9 



3.0 
3.1 
2.5 



0.7 
1.9 
0.1 
3.7 
3.5 
0.1 
1.2 
0.5 
7.3 
3.4 



2.0 
0.2 
0.3 
0.7 
3.7 
2.4 
1.3 
5.8 
0.1 
0.6 
0.3 
0.3 



0.6 
2.3 
1.3 
0.4 
2.1 
0.4 
1.8 
0.4 
0.6 
1.0 
1.8 
0.7 
0.4 
26.3 



0.1 
0.3 

i.i 

0.2 
0.5 
0.4 
0.4 
0.1 
0.2 



APPENDIX. 



357 



Substance. 



Sorghum 

Buckwheat 

P as 

Field Beans... 
Garden Beans. 
Vetch. 



140 
140 
143 
145 
150 
148 

Lupiue i 130 

150 
150 
160 
140 



Red Clover 
White Clover 
Esp-a-sette. .. 
Rutabagas.. 

Sugar-Beet j 146 

Carrots 120 

Succory 130 

Turnips 125 

Rape 118 

Summer-Rape 120 



Mustard. 

Poppy 

Linseed 

Hemp ; 

Grape-seeds i 

Horse-chestnuts, fresh 
Acorns, fresh i 



XI. 



-Various Animal 
Products. 



Cows' Milk 875 

Sheep " i860 

Cheese 450 

Ox-blood !790 

Calf-blood 800 

Sheep-blood 1790 

Swine-blood I 800 

Ox-flesh I 770 

Calf flesh '780 

Swine-flesh [740 

Living Ox 597 

Living Calf 1662 

Living Sheep i 591 

Living Swine 528 

Eggs 672 

Wool, washed 120 

Wool, unwashed 150 



14.4 

35.8 
40 8 

a).o 

44.0 
56.6 
30.5 



31.2 



28.0 
32.8 
26.1 

10.2 



5.1 

5.5 
45.3 
32.0 
29.0 
32 
29.0 
36.0 
34.9 
34.7 
26.6 
25.0 
22.4 

20 

21 8 
94.4 
54.0 



16.0 
11.8 
23.5 
30.7 
27.4 
26.8 
34.1 
38.3 
33.8 
38.4 
48.8 
45.3 
74 8 
54.6 
34.6 
39.1 
34.9 
30.5 
52.9 
32.6 
45.3 
25.0 
12.0 
9.6 



6.2 

8.4 

67.4 

7.5 

7.1 

7.5 

7.1 

12.6 

12.0 

10.4 

46.6 

38.0 

31.7 

21.6 

61.8 

9 7 

98.8 







? 


1 


3.3 


0.5 


2.7 


0.7 


9.8 


0.2 


13.1 


0.4 


12.0 


0.4 


8.1 


2.1 



10. 
13.5 
12.3 
11.0 
9.1 
11.1 
14.3 
6.5 
7.6 
9.6 
7.7 
5.9 
7.2 
10.0 
9.4 
7.2 
7.1 
6.2 



1.5 
1.8 
2.5 
0.6 
0.8 
0.5 
1.5 
5 2 
4.1 
3.9 
1.7 
2 4 
1.5 
1.8 
1.5 
1.8 
74.6 



0.1 
0.4 
0.2 
1.1 
8.5 
4.2 
3.5 
4.6 
0.4 
0.6 

2;6 

0.5 
0.7 
0.4 



0.1 



3.4 
2.9 
3.3 



1.0 
0.5 
1.4 
0.6 
1.4 
0.2 
1.4 
3 
1.9 



0.2 
0.5 
1.2 
1.5 
1.8 
2.1 
3 
2.5 
2.5 
12.3 
7.6 
10.2 
29.1 
17.3 
6.1 
5.5 
5.2 
7.0 
18.7 
2.6 
10.9 
8.4 
1.4 
0.7 



1.3 

2.5 

6.9 

0.1 

0.1 

0.1 

0.1 

0.2 

0.2 

0.8 

20.8 

16.3 

13.2 

9.2 

54.0 

2.4 

4.2 






1^ 






2.4 
1.5 
1.9 
2.2 
2.0 
2.4 
4.0 



2.6 
8.6 
7 3 
5.0 
5.9 
3.1 
4.6 
4.7 
3.7 
5 
4.7 
2.6 
2.1 
0.1 
0.5 



0.2 
0.1 
0.2 
0.1 
0.1 
1 
0.1 
0.4 
0.2 
0.5 
0.6 
0.5 
0.4 
0.4 
1.0 
, 0.6 
I 1.6 



1.7 
3.0 
11.5 
4 
0.6 
0.4 
0.9 
4.3 
5.8 
46 
18.6 
13.8 
12.3 
8.8 
3.7 
0.3 
1.1 



0.2 
0.8 
0.8 
1.1 
1.0 
1.5 
0.9 
1.6 
1.2 
2.1 
2.0 
4.2 
2 4 
2.5 
0.9 
2.3 
1.8 
1.0 
8 
0.1 
0.6 
0.3 
0.4 



0.1 

6!2 
0.1 
0.1 
0.1 
0.4 



1.2 
0.1 
0.2 
0.2 
0.2 
0.3 
0.2 
0.5 
0.8 
0.3 
1.1 
0.8 
4.0 
0.6 
0.2 
0.5 

6!9 
1.7 
0.4 
5.5 
0.3 
03 
0.1 



02 

o'.i 



0.3 
0.1 

o'.i 

0.1 
0.2 

6!i 

2.5 
3 



358 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



B.-AVEEAGE COMPOSITION OF VARIOUS MANURES. 







50 




J, 






. .5^ 




1 [ g 








.'^S 




s 






1 


i . 


•g . 


""l li 


Natvtkof Fertilizeb. 


,. 


sl 




fci 


'< ; 




S 


■s^ 


s;e 




1 




1 


^ 


1 


« 


1 


1 




^^ 


pis 


I.— Animal Excre- 






















1 


ments. 
























(In 1000 parts of Ma- 
























nure.) 










i 












Fresh Faeces: 






















Horse 


757 


211 


31.6 


4.4 


3.5 


0.6 


1.5 


1.2 


3.5 


0.6 


19.6 0.2 


Cattle 


838 
655 


145 


17 9 


2 9 


1 A 


0.2 
1.0 
2.5 


3 4 


1.3 


1.7 


4 


7 2 2 


Sheep 


314 sii^ 


5 5 15 


4 6 


15 


3!l 


1 4 


17 5 3 


Swine 


820 


150 


3o;o 


eio' 2^6 


0.9 


1.0 


4.1 


0.4 


15.0 0.3 


Fresh Urine: 








1 














Horse 


901 


71 


28.0 


15.5 15 2.5 


4 5 


2.4 




6 


0.8 1 5 


Cattle ,.... 


938 


,35 27.4 


5.8 4.9 6.4 


0.1 


0.4 


\\ 


1.3 


3 3.8 


Sheep 


872 


83 


45.2 


19.5 22 6 5.4 


1.6 


3.4 


6!i 


3 


1 6.5 


Swine 


967 


28 


15.0 


4.3 8.3 2 1 




0.8 


0.7 0.8 




2.3 


Fresh Dung (with 




















straw :)* 




















Horse 


713 

775 


254 
203 


32.6 
21.8 


5.8 5.3 
3.4 4.0 


1.0 
1.4 


2.1 
3.1 


1.4 
1.1 


2.8 0.7 
1.6 0.6 


17.7 
8.5 


4 


Cattle 


1.0 


Sheep 


646 


318 


35.6 


8.3 


6.7 


2.2 


3.3 


1.8 


2.3 1.5 


14.7 


1.7 


Swine 


724 


250 


25.6 


4.5 


6.0 


2 


0.8 


0.9 


1.9! 0.8 


10.8 


1.7 


Common Barn-yard 


















1 






Manure : 
















1 






Fresh 


710 
750 


246 
192 


44.1 
5o.O 


45 

5.0 


5.2 
6.3 


1.5 
1.9 


5.7 1.4 2 1 1.2 12.5 
7.0 1.8 2 fi 1.6,16.8 


1 5 


Moderately lotted . . 


1.9 


Thoroughly rotted.. 790 


145 


65.0 


5.8 


5.0 


1 3 


8.8 1.8 3.011.3 


17.0 


1.6 


Drainage from Barn- 




















yard Manure 982 


7 


10.7 


1.5 


4.9 


1.0 


0.3 


0.4 0.110.7 


0.2 


1.2 


Human Faeces, fresh. 772 


198 


29.9 


10.0 


2.5 


1.6 


6.2 3.6 10.9 


0.8 


1.9 


0.4 


' Urine, '' 963 


24 


13 5 


6.0 


2 


4 6 


0.2 0.2 1.7 


0.4 


^^ 


5.0 


Mixed human excre- 
















' 








ments, fresh 


933 


51 


16 


7.0 


2 1 


3.8 


0.9 


0.6 


2.6 


0.5 


0.2 


4.0 


Mixed human excre- 


























ments, mostly liquid 955 


30 15 


3.5 


2.0 


4 


1.0 


0.6 


2.8 


0.4 


0.2 


4.3 


Dove Manure, fresh,. : 519 


308 173.0 


17.610.0 


0.7 


16.0 


5.0 17 S 


3.3 


20.2 




Hen '• " .. 560 255 185.0 


16.3 


8.5 


1.0 


24.0 


7.4 15.4 


4.5 


35.2 




Duck " " .. 566 262 172.0 


10.0 


6.2 


0.5 


17.0 


3 5 14.0 


3.5 


28.0 


\\ 


Geese " " .. 771 134 


95.0 


5.5 


9.5 


1.3 


8.4 


2.0 


6.4 


1.4 


14.0 


.. 


n.— Commercial Ma- 






















nures. 






















(In 100 parts of Fer- 






















tilizer.) : 






















Peruvian Guano 14.8 51.4 


33.8 


13.0 


2.3 


1.4 


11.0 


1.2 


13 1.0 


1.7 


1.3 


Norway Fish-Guano.. 12.6 53.4 


34.0 


9.0 


0.3 


9 


15 4 


0.6 


13.5 3 


1.6 


1.1 


Poudrette 24. 027.01 49.0 


2.0 


0.9 


1.0 


18.6 


0.5 


2.1 1.0 


5.4 


15 


Pulverized Dead Ani- 1 














1 






mals 5.7 56.9 


37.4 


6.5 


0.3 


8 


18.2 


0.4 


13 9 1.0 


1.7 


0.2 


Flesh-Meal 27.8 56.6 


15.6 


9.7 






7.0 


0.3 


6.3 0.1 


1.1 




Dried Blood 


14 79.0 

1 


7.0 


11.7 


6". 7 


0.*6 


0.7 


0.1 


1.0 0.4 

1 


2.1 


o!4 


Horn-Meal and Shav- 




ings.... .. 8.568.5 


25.0 


10.2 






6.6 


0.3 


5.5 0.9 111.0 


.. 


Bone-Meal 


6.033.3: 60.7 


3.8 


6^2 


0.3 


31.3 


1 23.2 0.1 1 3.5 


0.3 



♦ It is estimated that in the case of horses, cattle, and swine, one-third of the 
urine drains away. The following is the amount of wheat-straw used daily aa 
bedding for each animal. Horse, 6 lbs. ; Cattle, 8 lbs. ; Swine, 4 lbs., and sheep, 
0.6 lbs. 



APPENDIX. 



359 







^- 














^ 




1 


i 


Name op Fbrtilizer. 


1 


P 


i 


^ 


1 


1 


H 


1 


1:^ 






Si 


(In 100 parts.) 
Bone Meal from solid 


Vo 


Vo 


Vo 


Vo 


Vo 


Vo 


Vo 


Vo 


%" 


Vo 


Vo 


Vo 


























parts 


5.0 


31.5 


63.5 


3.5 


0.1 


0.2 


330 


1.0 


25.2 


0.1 


3.0 


0.2 


Bone-Meal from soft 










1 














parts 


7.0 


37.3 


55.7 


4.0 


0.2 10.3 


29.0 


1.0 


20.0 


0.1 


3.5 


0.2 


Bone-black, before 










1 














used. 


60 
10.0 


10.0 
6.0 


84.0 
84.0 


1.0 
0.5 


O.1IO.3 

0.1 JO.2 


43 
37.0 


1.1 
1.1 


32 
26.0 


0.4 
4 


5.0 
15.0 


^ 


Bone-black, spent 




Bone ash 


6.0 


3.0 


91.0 




0.310.6 


46.0 


1.2 


35.4 


0.4 


6.5 


.. 


Baker Guano 


10.0 


9.2 


81.0 


b'.b 


0.2 


1.2 


41.5 


1.5 


34.8 


1.5 


0.8 


0.3 


Jarvis Guano 11.8 


8.2 


80.0 


0.4 


0.4 


0.3 


39.1 


5 


20.6 


18.0 


0.5 


0.2 


Estremadura Apatite., 1 6 








0.7 


0.3 


48.1 


0.1 


37.6 


0.2 


9.0 


1.5 


Sombrero Phosphate. 8.5 




91 '.5 


o'l 




0.8 


43.5 


0.6 


35.0 


0.5 


1.0 


0.6 


Navassa Phosphate. . . 


2.6 


5*. 4 


92.0 


0.1 






37.5 


0.6 


33.2 


0.5 


5.0 


0.1 


JSfassau Phosphorite, 


























rich 


2.6 


,, 


97.4 


,. 


0.8 


0.4 


45.1 


0.2 


33.0 


0.3 


5.5 


3.1 


Nassau Phosphorite, 


























medium 


2.5 


.. 


97.5 


,. 


0.7 


0.4 


40.1 


0.2 


24.1 


.. 


20.8 


1.5 


Westphalian Phos- 


























phorite 


6.5 


1.6 


91.8 


,. 






21.8 


0.9 


19.7 


1.0 


22.0 


1.6 


Hanover Phosphorite 


2.0 


3.5 


94.5 


,. 




.. 


37.2 


0.2 


29.2 


0.5 


3.3 


1.5 


Coprolites 


4.3 




95.7 




I'.b 


0.5 


45.4 


1.0 


26.4 


08 


7.5 


0.1 


Sulphate of Ammonia. 


4.0 


.. 




20 ".0 




.. 


0.5 






58 


3.0 


1.4 


Nitrate of Soda 


2.6 






15 5 




35.0 


0.2 






0.7 


1.5 


1.7 


Wool-dust and offal.. 


10.0 


56!0 


34.0 


5.2 


d.'3 


0.1 


1 4 


0.3 


1^3 


0.5 


29.0 


0.2 


Lime-cake 


6.5 


47.0 


46.5 


3.1 


_, 


.. 


20.5 


2.4 


3.0 


,. 


8.0 


., 


Whale-oil refuse 


23.0 


68.4 


8.6 


5.7 


__ 




3.0 


0.2 


2.3 




3.0 


.. • 


Common Salt 


5.0 




95.0 




]\ 


44;3 


1.2 


0.2 




i!4 


2.0 


48.2 


Gypsum or Plaster.... 


20.0 




80.8 


. 


[' 




31.0 


0.1 


.. 


44.0 


4.0 


.. 


G«s-lime 


7.0 


i!3 


91.7 


04 


0.2 




64.5 


1.5 




12.5 


3.0 


.. 


Sugar-House Scum. . . 


34 5 


24.5 


41.0 


1.2 


0.2 


0.6 


20.7 


0.3 


i!5 


0.3 


9.1 


0.1 


Leached wood ashes. . 20.0 


5.0 


75.0 




2.5 


1.3 


24.5 2.5 


6.0 


0.8 


20.0 


.. 


Wood-soot 


5.0 


71.8 


23 2 


i'.3 


2.4 


0.5 


10.0 


1.5 


0.4 


0.3 


4.0 


.. 


Coal-soot 


5.0 


70 2 


24 8 


2.5 


0.1 


.. 


4.0 


1.5 




1.7 


16.0 


.. 


Ashes from Deciduous 


























trees 


5.0 


5.0 


90.0 


,, 


10.0 


2.5 


30.0 


5.0 


6.5 


1.6 


18.0 


0.3 


Ashes from Evergreen 


























trees 


5.0 


5.0 


90.0 




6.0 


2.0 


35.0 


6.0 


4.5 


1.6 


18.0 


0.3 


Peat-ashes 


5.0 


" 


95.0 


[[ 


1.5 


0.8 


? 


1.5 


0.6 


1.3 


? 


0.8 


Bituminous coal-ashes 


5.0 




95.0 


.. 


0.5 


0.4 


? 


3.2 


0.2 


8.5 


? 




Anthracite coal-ashes. 


5.0 


5.0 


90.0 


•• 


0.1 


0.1 


? 


3.0 


0.1 


5.0 


? 


•• 


in.— SlTPBRPHOS- 


























PHATE, from 


























Peruvian Guano '16.0 


41.9 


42.1 


10.0 


2.0 


1.2 


9.5 


1.0 


10.5 


15.0 


1.5 


1.1 


Baker Guano [15.0 


6.2 


78.8 


0.3 


0.1 


0.8 


25 9 


0.9 


21.8 


28 5 


0.9 


0.2 


Estremadura Apatite.. 15 . 




85.0 




0.4 


0.2 


28.2 


0.1 


22.1 


28.5 


5.3 0.9 


Sombrero Phosphate. 15.0 




85.0 






0.5 


26 4 


0.4 


20 2 


25.5 


0.6 


0.4 


Navassa Phosphate... 15.0 


2!5 


82.5 


. 


., 


? 


17.0:0.3 


15 4 


19.5 


2 3 


T 


Nassau Phosphorite, 






















rich 15.0 




85.0 


,, 


0.5 


0.2 


26.5:0.1 


19.4 


25.5 


3.2 


1.8 


Nassau Phosphorite, 
























medium 12.0 




88.0 




0.3 


0.1 24.2 


0.1 


16.6 


19.5 13.5 


1.3 


Bone-black 15.0 


HO 


77.0 


6*3 




0.1 25.0 


7 


16.2 


21.0 


9.3 


,. 


Bone-Meal 13.0 23.8 


63.2 


2.0 


o'.i 


0.2 22.4 


0.7 


16.6 


19.5 


2.5 


0.2 


Phospho-guano 1 i 




















(manufactured.) ...'15 513.0 


80.3 


3.3 


0.3 


0.4 24.0' .. 


20.5'28.8' 3.0' 0.9 



360 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



-TABLE SHOWING THE DISTRIBUTION OF INGREDIENTS 
IN SOME MANUFACTURING PROCESSES. 



Name of Mate rial. 



1.— BREWINa. 

1000 lbs. Barley, contain 

15 " Hops " 

Distribution of the Ingredients : 

Water 

Malt-Sprouts 

Brewers' Grains 

SpentHops 

Yeast 






lbs. 
855 
13.2 



2.— DiSTlXLERT. 

a. 1000 lbs. Potatoes, contain.... 

40 " Kilu-Malt 

20 " Yeast-Malt 

The Slump, contains 

(b.) Grain Spirits. 

800 lbs. Rye, contain 

200 •■' Kiln-Malt, contain 

50 " Yeast-Malt, " 

The Slump, " 

3.— Yeast Maktipacturb. 

700 lbs. bruised Rye, contain 

300 " Barley-Malt, 
Distribution of the Ingredients : 

Yeast 

Grains and Slump 

4.— Starch Manufactukh. 

1000 lbs. Potatoes, contain 

The remains in the Fibre 

" "• " Water 

5.— Milling. 

1000 lbs. Wheat, crntain 

Distribution of the Inffredients : 

Flour (77.5 per cent) 

Mill-feed (6.5 '' ) 

Bran (16.0 " ) 

6.— Cheese-Making. 

1000 lbs. Milk, contain . . 

Distribution of the Ingredients : 

Cheese 

Whey 

7.— Beet-Sugar Manufactttrb. 

1000 lbs. Roots, contain 

Distribution of the Ingredients : 
Tops and Tails (12 per cent of 

roots) 

Pomace (15 per cent of roots)... 
Skimmings (4 per cent of roots) 
Molasses (3 per cent of roots). . 

Sugar and loss 

8.— Flax Dressing. 
1000 lbs. Flax-Stalks, contain. 
Distribution of the Ingredients : 

In the Water 

Stems or Husks 

Flax and Tow 



260 
9 



lbs. 

15.3 



lbs 

22 23 

1.00 



250 

37 

18.5 

125 

684 

184 

46 

443 



1.23 
1.38 2.43 
8.74 13.08 

0.54 



2.94 
2.14 



.27 



3.2 9.43 

56 i 1.06 

0.28 0.53 

4.04 11.02 



14.08 
2.82 
0.71 

17.61 



599 12.32 
276 4.23 



45 
325 

250 
75 
45 

857 

664 
58 
135 

125 

65 
60 

184 



215 
460 
155 



4.60 
11.95 



0.()0 
2.60 

20.80 

14.65 
1.G4 
4.51 



4.53 

0.27 



1.60 



0.24 
0.44 
0.60 
0.32 



14.32 
5.12 

1.28 
20.72 

12.53 

7.07 

3.41 
16.79 

9 43 
0.54 



16.88 

5.50 
1.80 
9.60 

6.10 

2.84 
3.26 

7.10 



1.15 
1.71 
1.20 
2.47 
0.57 



25.15 
4 03 



lbs. 
4.48 
0.345 

0.852 
0.749 
0.580 
0.023 
0.643 
1.998 

5.69 

0.184 
0.092 
5.966 

4.501 
0883 

221 
5 605 

3.941 

1 325 

1.273 
3.993 

5.69 

0.086 

5,604 



1.980 
0.fi48 
2.672 

1.505 

0.247 
1.258 

3.914 



0.336 
0.585 
0.380 
1.741 
0.872 

9.426 

9.175 
0.171 



lbs. 
0.58 
0.167 

0.039 
0.069 
1.474 
O.KiO 
0.097 



0.24 

0.040 
020 
0.300 

0.376 
195 
0.049 
0.620 

0.329 
0.293 

0.192 
0.430 

0.24 
0.266 



1.22 i 0.054 



0.57 

0.154 
0.050 
0.396 



0.687 
0.646 



0.379 



0.108 
0.390 
8. 640 
0.141 



6.751 

4.100 
2.052 
648 



lbs. 
1.92 
0.056 

0.045 
0.066 
1.134 
0.055 
0.185 
0.484 

0.44 
0.088 
0.044 
0.572 

1 648 
0.429 
0.107 
2.184 

1 444 
0.643 

0.367 
1.720 

0.44 

0.042 

0.398 

2.02 

0.458 
0.148 
1.394 

0.186 

0.028 
0.158 

0.536 



0.132 
0.105 
240 
0.009 
0.040 

1.995 

1.850 
0.096 
0.054 



INDEX 



Absorptive Powers of Soils 217 

Ammonia Absorbed by Soil from 

the Atmosphere 219 

Ammonia and Superphosphate 242 

and Weeds 254 

Converted into Nitric 

Acid in the Soil 313 

for Oats 253-254 

for Potatoes 261 

for Wheat 192-213 

in Fresh Horse-dung 96 

in Limed and Unlimed 

Soils 220 

in the Soil Liberated by 

Lime 221 

Locked Up in the Soil.. .221 
Loss of by Fermenting 

Manure „ 98 

on Grass Land 2T3 

Potential 31 

Quantity of to Produce 
One Bushel of Wheat, 

211-212 
Required to Produce a 
Bushel of Bailey. .240-212 

Eetained by the Soil 213 

Salts, Composition of 312 

" How to Apply,. 

286-312 
" " for Private Gar- 
dens 297 

Anderson, J. M. B., Letter from. . . 345 
Animals, Composition of Manure 

from Difleront 306 

" What They Eemove from 

the Food 301 

Apple Trees, Nitrate of Soda for., .314 
Artificial Manures, Will They Pay..244 

Ashes, Burnt Earth 72 

" Coal 73 

" for Barley 241 

" for Indian Corn 279 

*' for Oats 253 

** for Potatoes 259 

" of Manure for Wheat 173 

" on Long Island 346 

" Plaster and Hen-dung for 

Potatoes 255 

" Wood 104 

Barley After Ten Crops of Turnips. 2.i0 

" a Lars-e Yield of 242 

" and Clover after a heavily- 
manured Root-crop 287 

" Best Soil for 227 

" Cost of Raising With and 

Without Manure 245 

361 



Barley,Lawcs' and Gilbert's Experi- 
ments on 227 

" Potash Increases the Crop of 

at Kothamsted 329 

" Profits of Raising in Po;jr 

Seasons 243 

" Quality and Price of !242 

" \ ield Per Acre H 

Barn-yard Manure, Difference in 

Qualityof 246 

Bean-straw for Manure . 48 

Beets, Sugar, Lawes' and Gilbert's 

Experiments on . . . 288 

j " " Manui-e f or 286 

} Blood ^ 32 

Bone-dust .314 

" Composition of Com- 
pared with Stable Ma- 

,, nure 315 

I ormeuted with Manure.316 
•' " Made into Superphos- 

Ihate 319 

" on Dairy Farms 315 

Bones as Manure 102 

Bran 26 

•• for Manure !!!!!! 102 

" Richer in Plant-food than 

Wheat 301 

Brewer, Prof. W. H., Letter from.. 341 
Cabbage and Barn-yaid Manure, 

Composition of 292 

" Composition of 290-292 

" Hog and Cow Manure for.302 

" Lime for 292 

" Manure for 275-290 

" Manure for Early and 

Late 291 

" Needs a Large Supplv < f 
Nitrogen in the Soil. 
Though it Removes 

but Little 293 

" Potash for 292 

'• Special Manure for 323 

" Yield of per Acre 291 

Cattle vs. Sheep as Mann re-makers. 303 

Cheese, from a Ton of Hay Ill 

Plant-food in ...101 

" versus Beef 110 

Clay Retains .Ammonia 219 

Clover and Indian Corn 275 

" as a Renovating and Ex- 
hausting Crop 277 

" as Manure 119-122 

" as Manure for Wheat 158 

" Does it Get Nitrogen from 

the Atmosphere 133-138 



362 



INDEX. 



Clover, Dr. Voelcker's Experiments 

on 135 

" for Wheat 126 

" Gathers Up Manure from the 

Sub-soil 287 

" Hay, Composition of ... . 129-137 
" Hay, English and German, 

for Manure 47 

" How to Make a Farm Rich 

by Growing 133-163 

" Letting it Rot on the Sur- 
face as Manure 134 

" Nitrogen as a Manure for. . . 141 
" Pasturing by Slieep versus 

Mowing for Hay 137 

" Plowing Under versus Feed- 
ing Out 123 

*' Roots, Amount of per Acre, 

143-14'^155 
" Roots, Composition of. . 145-147 
" Seed, Amount of Roots per 

Acre 162 

" Water Evaporated by 132 

" Why it Enriches Land 131 

Coal-aphes to Mix with Artificial 

Manures 312 

Composting Cow-manure with 

Muck. Leaves, etc 302 

Compost of Stable-manure and 

Earth 342 

Corn, as a Renovating Croj) 275 

" Ashes for -. 279 

" Barn-j^tird Manure for 284 

" Cost of Raising 9 

" Crop, Composition of 25 

" Experiments on 279 

" Guano for 27^284 

" Manure for 2T5 

" Meal for Manure 185 

" Superphosphate for 27»-284 

" Fodder 275 

♦' " vs. Mangel- wurzels... 288 

" Plaster for 277 

" " vs. Wheat, Yield per 

acre -... 276 

Crops Best to Apply Manure to 2J5 

'• How to Get Larger 28-36 

" Raised and Sold from the 

Farm 27 

" Rotation of 116-168 

" We Must Raise Larger per 

Acre 266 

" Why so Poor 28 

Cotton-seed Cake 4 i-339 

Cow-manure 86-100 

" " and How to Use it. . . .302 

" " Compositiou of 3 '6 

Cows, Feeding Grain to 110-113 

'• Feeding in Winter for Ma- 
nure 25C 

Dairy Farms, Bone-dust on 315 

Drainage from Barn- yard 306 

Dry Earth for Pig Pens 304 

Eartu-closet Manure 310 

"• " " on Grass 225 

Fallow,rall 12 

" for Wheat. How to — Mr. 

Lawes' Experiments 35 

" Summer, for Wheat 15-34 



Farm Dairy, Receipts and Expenses 

of .109 

" Hon. George Geddes' 119 

" Hon. Joseph Shuirs 109 

" John Johnston's 76-81-120 

" Mr. Dewey's 39 

" Mr. Joseph O. Sheldon's 15 

" to Restore a Worn Out 37 

Farming, a Poor Business 9 

'• Diiference Between High 

and Good 11 

" Faith in Good 14 

" Good Does Not Lead to 

Overproduction 14 

SlowWork 17 

Fermenting Manure to Kill Weed- 
Seeds 97 

Fish as Manure 347 

Food, Nothing Added to it by the 

Animal 42 

Gardens, Manure for Private 296 

Geddes, Hon. George 17-1 17 

Grains, Malt, English and German. 47 

Grass a Saving's Bank 41 

" Importance of Rich 113 

" Manure for 120 

Guano asa Top-dressing^or Wheat.270 

" for Barley 240 

" for Oats 253 

" for Peas 17 

" for Potatoes 255-258 

" on Wheat 120-180-184 

" Peruvian, Composition of.. 311 

" " for Onions 294 

"• " Price and Com p(v 
sition of Now 
and30T'rsAgo.327 
" " Rectified for Tur- 
nips 286 

" What it is? 311 

Gypsum 104-116-126 

for Oats 254 

" for Peas 17 

" for Potatoes .,.255-259 

Ilarison, T. L., Letter from 115 

Hay, Best ^Manure for 214 

" Plant-food in 101 

Hcacock, Joseph, Letter from 348 

Henderson, Peter, Letter from .344 

Hen Manure 43-104-:!0l 

" " for Potatoes 255 

High Farming 12 

•'• •'■ versus Good Farming 11 

Fops, Manure for 274 

Horse-manure, Compositiou of. . . .306 

Hot-beds, Manure for 297 

Human Excrements, Composition 

of 308 

Indian Corn. See Corn 

Irrigation on Market Gcirdcns 295 

Jessup, Edward, Letter from 342 

Johnson, Prof. S. W., on the Value 

of Fertilizers 324 

Lawes' and Gilbert's Experiments 

on Barley 227 

Lawes' and Gilbert's Experiments 

on Oats 252 

Lawes' and Gilbert's Experiments 
on Permanent Meadows 271 



INDEX. 



303 



Lawes' and Gilbert's Experiments 
on the Amount of Excrements 

Voided by Man 309 

Lavves' and Gilbert's Experiments 
on Sugar beets and Maugel-wur- 

zels 288 

Lawes' and Gilbert's Experiments 

on Wheat 170 

Lawes' and Gilbert's Experiments, 

Potash Beneficial for Barley 329 

Lavves' Table, Showing: Composi- 
tion and Value of Foods 45 

Lettuce, Manure for 289 

Superphosphate for. . . 290-293 
Lewis, Hon. Harris, Letter from. ...103 

Liebig's Special Manures 321 

Lime as Manure 215 

" Beneficial Effect of for Thirty 

Years 216 

" Changes the Chemical and 
Physical Character of the 

Soil 224 

" Composting with Old Sods. . .224 

" for Cabbage 292 

" Hastens the Maturity of the 

Crop 222 

" Impoverishes the Soil 222 

" in Connecticut 224 

" in Delaware 223 

" in New Jersey ..223 

" in Pennsylvania 224 

" Mixed with Barn-yard Ma- 
nure 222 

" on Grass Land 223 

*' on Lime-stone Land 217 

" Quantity per Acre 216 

"• Sets Free Ammonia in the 

Soil 221 

" Silicate Absorbs Ammonia 

from Atmosphere 219 

" When to Apply 223 

" Why Beneficial 220 

Liquid Manure 306 

Lowland, Draining 30 

Malt-combs 46 

Maugel-wurzels for Mauure 48 

Manure forl03-286-28S 

" " Yield per Acre 11 

Manure Absorbing Liquid 115 

'• Amount from Feed and 

Bedding 78 

" Amount Made by a Horse 

50-346 
*' " Made by Horses, 

Cows, Sheep, and Pigs. . . 51 
" Amount Made on a 250-acre 

Farm 257 

" Amount of Eain Kequired 

to Dissolve 267 

" Amount of Straw in Horse. 346 

" and Rotatit n of Crops 246 

" Applying A rtificial 312 

" Applying Near the Surface. 267 
" Applying on the Surface. . .173 

" as Top-dressing 2f 19 

"• Barn-yard for Barley 240 

" Barn-yard vs. Artificial for 

Indian Corn 284 

" Basin for 93 



Manure Best for ITay 274; 

Bone-dust 314-316 

" Brings in Red Clover 82 

" Buying 306 

" Buying by Measure or 

Weight 305 

" Buying by the Load or Ton.306 

Cellar 114 

" Cheapest a Farmer Can Use.127 

Clover as 119-122 

" Clover-seed as 127 

" Comes from the Land 42 

"■ Common Salt as 200 

" Composition of Fresh Barn- 
yard 51 

" • Composition of from Dif- 
ferent Animals 306 

'* Composition of Heap at 

Difl"erent Periods 57 

" Corn-meal for 185 

" Cost of Hauling 342 

" Cost of Loading and Draw- 
ing 77 

Cow 87-100 

" Dairy-farm, How to Save 

and Apply 114 

" Dr. Vcelckei's Experiments 

on 51 

Drawing Out to the Field.. 89 
" English Plan of Keeping. . . 69 

" Equivalent to Water 296 

" Farm-yard for Potatoes 261 

" Fermenting in Wintor.85-92-93 
" Fermenting, Shrinkage in.. 116 

Fire-fang 84-98 

" Fish, as, on Long Island. . 347 
" Foods which Make Rich .... 45 
" for Cabbage, Parsnips, 
Onions, Carrots, Lettuce, 

etc 289 

" for Corn 80 

" for Grass 82 

'* for Hops 274 

" for Hot-beds 297 

"■ for Indian Corn 275 

" for Mangel-wurzels and 

Sugar-beets 287 

for Market Gardens 294 

for Oats 252 

*' for Potatoes 255 

" for Seed-growing Farms. . .296 
" for Sorghum or Chinese 

Sugar-cane 283 

"• for Tobacco 275 

for Turnips 285-322 

lorWheat 167 

" from Cows 302 

" from Earth-closet 310 

" from Oxen 303 

" from Pigs. Mr. Lawes' Ex- 
periments... . 301 

" from Sheep 303 

'• Grain Farms, Management 

of 117 

" Guano. Price of Now and 

Thirty Yi'ars Ago 328 

" Guano, Rectified Peruvian.319 

" Gypsum and Clover as 125 

" Heap, Changes in 67 



304 



INDEX. 



Manure Heap, Fermenting S8 

" in Winter 84 

" " Piling in Field..88-&9-90 

" Turning 83 

" Hen 43-104-301 

" Horse 32-8a 

" Horse and Farm-yard 50 

*• How and When it Sliould 

be Applied 2G7 

" How John Johnston Man- 
ages it 76 

" How Made and Used in 

Maryland 349 

" How the Deacon Makes it.. 74 

" How to Make 41 

" How to Make More 25 J 

" How to Make More and Bet- 
ter on Dairy Farms 105 

" How to Make Poor, Rich, 

274-293 

" How to Make Richer 257 

*' How Much it Shrinks by 

Fermentation — 342 

" How Much Nitrogen in a 

Load of 303 

"■ in Kansas 340 

" in Philadelphia, Interest- 

ingFacts 33S 

" Keeping Under Cover 59 

" Lime as ..215 

" Liquid -.. .. 3^6 

" Management of in Canada. 335 
" Mr. Lawes' Experiments 

with 95 

" Loss from Leachi iig 9!) 

•' Management of 94 

" Market Value of 104 

" Mixed with Lime 222 

" Natural 23 

" Nigtit-soil as 308 

" Nitrate of Soda as 134 

Not Available 95 

" on Dairy Farm 101 

" on Permanent Meadows 

andPastures 271 

" Preserved by the Soil 177 

" Pigs' 86 

" Piling 116 

" Potashas 3i9 

" Price of in Boston 3,4 

" '^ " Maryland 333 

" " " New Haven.... 3 !1 

" New York 3J4 

" " per Horse in New 

York 336 

" Quantity Made on a Farm.. 12 
" Quantity of Used on Long 
Island. Interesting Sta- 
tistics 336 

" Reduced by Fermentation. 297 
" Richer in Plant-food than 
the Food from which it is 

Derived 301 

" Sea-weed as 3.37 

" Sheep 86 

'" Should be Broken Up Fine . 268 

" Soluble Phosphates in 72 

" Special 140-320 



Manure, Specific Gravity of from 

Different Animals* 305 

" Spread in Open Yard 63 

" Stable, Management 332 

Straw and Chaff as 200 

" Superphosphate, How 

Made 317 

" Swamp-Muck as 29 

" Tank 115 

" the Author's Plan of Man- 
aging 83 

Tillage as 32-121-225 

" Top-dressing for Wheat in 

Kansas 350 

" " " on Growing 

Crops 343 

" to What Crops Should it be 

Applied 265 

" Valueof 78 

"• Value of Depends on the 

Food, Not oa the Animal. 43 

" Value of Straw as 123 

Waterin 124 

" Weeds as .. 24 

" Weight of 343-350 

" Well-rotted, Composition 

of 65 

" Well-rotted, Loss from 

Leaching 65 

What is it? 19-22 

" Why Do We Ferment ? 94 

Market Gardens, Irrigntion in 295 

•' "• Manure for 294 

" " Pig-manure on.. 295 

Meadows, Manure f or 271 

Night soil , 225-S08 

Nitrate of Potash 312 

Nitrate of Soda 134 

" " Acts Quicker than 

Ammonia 313 

"• " as a Top-dressing 

for Wheat 270 

" " Composition of 312 

"■ " for Apple Trees 314 

" for Barley 243 

" for Oats 252 

" for Onions 294 

" " for Sugar-Beets..,,289 

" for Wheat 159 

" " How to Apply 312 

Nitric Acid 341 

Nitrogen, Amount per Acre in the 

Soil 28-162 

" as Manure 28 

in Soils 106-226-336-341 

" Makes Poor Manure 

Rich 24f5 

Nurserymen, Manure for 297 

Oats, Experiments on in Virginia.. 253 
" Experiments on at Moreton 

Farm 254 

'• Lawes' and Gilbert's Experi- 
ments on 252 

"• Manures for 252 

Oil-cake for Sheep 76 

Onions, Manure for 294 

Peas for Pigs 17 

Pea-straw for Manure 48 



INDEX. 



3G5 



Peat, Composition of 31 

Phosphates 27 

" Exbaustion of on Dairy 

Farms 101 

" Soluble in Barn-yard 

Manure 72 

Phosphoric Acid in Soils l{)t)-226 

" " perAcre in Soils. 1(52 

" " Retained by the 

Soil 219 

" " Heme ved from the 

Farm by Hay, and by Milcli Cow8.316 

Pig Manure 43-86 

" Composition of 30o 

" " for Cabbage 302 

Pigs as Manure-Makers for Market 

Gardeners 205 

Pigs' Bedding 31 

^ for Enriching Pasture-Land . . .301 
" How to Save Manure from. . .3f)4 

" Manure from 301-;i04 

Piling Manure _ {,11 

Plant-food 21-105 

" Amount of in an Acre. 2J.-3J 
" "in New and Cultivated 

Land 89 

Plaster for Indian Corn 277 

Howicg in the Fall 17 

Potash, Amount of in the S©il 25-329 

•' as Manure 329 

" as Manure for Wheat 215 

" for Cabbages 292 

" for Potatoes 255-260 

'* for Potatoes and Root- 
Crops 330 

** How to Ascertain when the 

Soil Needs 330 

" in Nitrate of Potash 314 

" Not a Special Manure for 

Turnips 322 

" on Grass Land 273 

** our Soils not so likely to be 
Deficient in, as of Nitro- 
gen and Phosphoric Aci(1.330 

" Retained by the Soil 219 

" Value of in Artificial Ma- 
nures 326 

Potatoes, after Root-Crops 287 

*' Ammonia for 261 

Cost of Raising 10 

" Experiments on at More- 
ton Farm 259 

" for Manure 48 

" How tt) Raise a Large 

Crop 2.55, 

" Manures for 255 

" Mr. Hunter's Experiments 

on in England 260 

" on Rich Land 263 

" Profits of Using Artificial 

Manures on 263 

" Will Manure Injure Qual 

ityof 264 

Rape-cake 46 

" '• as Manure for Hops 274 

Roots. Amount of Left in Soil by 

DiO'erent Crops 164 

Root-crops 17 

Rotation of Crops and Manures 246 



Rushmore, J. H., Letter from 345 

Routzahn. H. L., Letter from 349 

Salt as a Manure for Wheat 270 

" Common as Manure for Wheat. 200 

" for Maugel-wurzels 104 

Saw-dust for iBeddi ug 103 

Season, a Poor. Profitable for Good 

Farmers 213 

" and Manure for Oats 253 

" Influence of on the Growth 

of Wheat 210 

" Profit in Raising Oats in a 

Poor 253 

" Profit in Raising Barley in 

a Poor 243 

Seasons, Influence on Crops 21 

Seed Growers, Manures for 296 

Sewage 308 

Sheep-Manure 303-033-339 

*' Composition of 306 

" v&. Oxen as Manure Makers. 303 
Slielton, Prof. E. M., Letter from.. 350 

Soil, Composition of 144^150 

•• Exbaustion of 23-27-332 

" from Earth-closet 225 

" Nitrogen and Phosphoric Acid 

in 226 

" Plant-food in 105 

" Weight of per Ac: e 221 

Soils Absorb Ammonia from Atmos- 
phere 219 

" Absorptive Powers of 217 

Sorghum, Manures for 283 

Special Manures 320 

Straw 26 

" Amount of Manure from 124 

" and Chaff for Manure 200 

' for Manures 48 

" on Grain Farms 118 

" Selling... 123 

Sturtevant, Dr. E. L., Letter from 344 

Superphosphate 116 

for Barley 241 

" for Indian Corn. .279 

" for Potatoes . ...259 

"• for Private Gar 

dens 296 

for Turnips. .28.5-;i22 

for Wheat 168-169 

" from Bones, Com- 

position of.. . .319 
" from Mineral 

Phosphates... 320 

" How Applied.. . 320 

"• on Dairy Farms . 315 

on Grass L:.nd ...273 

»' V^alue of as Com 

pared withBone- 

Dust 319 

" What Crops Best 

for 243 

Superphospate of Lime Doctor 

Teiis How it is Made 317 

SuperphosDhate of Lime, When 

First Made in the United States 324 
Surface Application of Manure. .70- 266 

Swamp-muck 29 

'■' '• Composition of oi 

Swine, see Pigs 



366 



INDEX. 



Thomas, J. J., Remarks on the Ai> 

plication of Manures 269 

Tillage is Manure 32-121-163-225 

Tobacco, Manure for 275 

Top dressing with Manure. 269 

Turnips, Do They Absorb Nitrogen 

from the Atmosphere. ..250 
" Impoverish the Soil More 

than Grain 250 

" Manure for 285 

" and Wheat, Special Ma 

nures for 321 

Urine from Farm Animals Richer 

than Human 309 

" vs. Solid Manure 294 

Valuation of Fertilizers 324 

Water, Amount Given Off by Plants 

During Their Growth 131 

Water Equivalent to Manure 296 

Weeds 15-41-189 

Weed-seeds in Manure 97 

Weld, Col. M. C, Letter from 344 

Wheat, Ammonia for 192 

" Artificial Manures for 
Should be Drilled in with 
Seed 168-169 



Wheat, Common Salt as Manure for 200 
" Crop, Composition of.. 26- 120- 
138-340 
" Effect of Manure on. in Poor 

Season 213 

" Influence of Season on 210 

" is it Deteriorating ? 189 

" Larger Crops per Acre 122 

" Lawes' and Gilbert's Exper- 
iments on 140-170-333 

" Manures for 167 

" Mr. Lawes' Experiments on. 122 

" Nitroeen as Manure for 141 

" Plant-food in 101 

" Potash as Manure for 215 

" Straw and Chaff as a Manure 

for 200 

" Summer Fallowing for . . 35-168 
" the 20th Crop on Same Land. 213 

" Top-dressing for 270 

" vs. Corn, Comparative 

Yieldof 276 

" Well-rotted Manure for 267 

" Why Our Crops are so Poor. 214 
** YieldperAcre 11 



Gardening for Young and Old. 

THE 

CULTIVATION OF GARDEN VEGETABLES IN THE 
FARM GARDEN. 

By JOSEPH HARRIS, M.S., 

Author of "Walks and Talks on the Farm,'''' '■''Harrison tJie Pig,''^ '■'Talks on 
Mannres,'''' etc 




CONTENTS. 
Introduction.— An Old and a New Garden.- Gardening for Boys.— How to 
Begin.— Preparing the Soil —Killing the Weeds— About High Farming.— Com- 
petition in Crops.— The Manure Question.- The Implements Needed.— Start- 
ing Plants in the House or in the Hot-bed. — The Window-box.- Making the 
Hot bed.- Cold Frames— Insects.— Tlie Use of Poisons.- The Care of Poisons. 
—The Cultivation of Vegetables in the Farm Garden.— The Cultivation of 
Flowers, 

ILLLUSTRATED. 

12mo. Cloth. Price, postpaid, $1.25. 

ORANGE JUDD COMPANY, 751 Broadway, New York. 



HARRIS ON THE PIG. 

Breeding, Kearing, Management, and Improvement, 

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 

By JOSEPH HARRIS, Moreton Farm, Rochester, N. Y. 

New and Enlarged Edition. Revised hy the Author. 

The points of the various English and American breeds are thoroiighlj' dis- 
cussed, and the great advantage of using thoroughbred males clearly shown. 
The work is equally valuable to the farmer who keeps but a few pigs, and tO 
the breeder on an extensive scale. 



COIVTEJNTS. 

CHAPTER I.— Introductory. 

CHAPTER II.— Breeds of Pigs. 

CHAPTER III.— The Form of a Good Pig. 

CHAPTER IV.— Desirable Qualities in a Pig. 

CHAPTER v.— Large vs. Small Breeds and Crosses. 

CHAPTER VI.— Value of a Thorough-Bred Pig. 

CHAPTER VII.— Good Pigs need Good Care. 

CHAPTER VIII.— The Origin and Improvement of our Domestic Pigs. 

CHAPTER IX.— Improvement of English Breeds of Pigs. 

CHAPTER X.— The Modern Breeds of English Pigs. 

CHAPTER XI —Breeds of Pigs in the United States. 

CHAPTER XII.— Experiments in Pig Feeding. 

CHAPTER XIII — Lawes' and Gilbert's Experiments in Pig Feeding. 

CHAPTER XIV.— Sugar as Food for Pigs. 

CHAPTER XV.— The Value of Pig Manure. 

CHAPTER XVI.— Piggeries and Pig Pens. 

CHAPTER XVII.— Swill Barrels, Pig Troughs, etc. 

CHAPTER XVIII.— Management of Pigs. 

CHAPTER XIX. — English Experience in Pig Feeding 

CHAPTER XX.— Live and Dead Weight of Pigs. 

CHAPTER XXI.— Breeding and Rearing Pigs. 

CHAPTER XXII.— Management of Thorough-bred Pigs. 

CHAPTER XXIII.— Profit of Raising Thorough-bred Pigs. 

CHAPTER XXIV.— Cooking Food for Pigs. 

CHAPTER XXV.— Summary. 

CHAPTER XXVI.— Appendix. 

CHAPTER XXVII.— Results of Later Experience. 

I*rioe, post-palcl, ^1.50. 

ORANG-E JUDD COMPANY, 

751 Broadway, New York* 



NEW AMERICAN FARM BOOK. 

ORIQINAIiLT BT 

AVTHOB OTP "diseases OP DOMESTIC ANIMALS," AND POKMEKLT SDZTOB OP 

THE "AMERICAN AGRICTJLTtTRIST." 

REVISED AND ENLARGED BT 



LETTIS F. 



AUTHOR OF " AMERICAN CATTLE," EDITOR OP THE 
HERD BOOK," ETC. 

c o :>^ T E nsr T s : 



AMERICAN SHOBT-HOB 



Introduction.— Tillage Husbandry 
— Grazing — Feeding — Breeding — 
Planting, etc. 

Chapter I.— Soils — Classification- 
Description — Management — Pro- 
perties. 

Chapter II. — Inorganic Manures — 
Mineral — Stone — Earth. — Phos- 
phatic. 

Chapter III. — Organic Manures — 
Their Composition — Animal— Ve- 
getable. 

Chapter rV. — ^Irrigation and Drain- 
ing. 

Chapter V. — Mechanical Divisions 
of Soil? — Spading — Plowing — Im- 
plements. 

Chapter VI.— The Grasses— Clovers 
— Meadows — Pastures — Compara- 
tive Values of Grasses — Implements 
for their Cultivation. 

Chapter VII.— Grain, and its Culti- 
vation — Varieties — Growth — Har- 
vesting. 

Chapter VIII. — Leguminous Plants 
—The Pea— Bean — English Field 
Bean— Tare or Vetch— Cultivation 
— Harvesting. 

Chapter IX.— Roots and Esculents— 
Varieties— Growth — Cultivation — 
Securing the Crops — Uses — Nutri- 
tive Equivalents ot Different Kinds 
of Forage. 

Chapter X. — Fruits — Apples— Cider 
— Vinegar — Pears — Quinces— Plums 
Peaches — Apricots — Nectarines — 
Smaller Fruits— Planting— Cultiva- 
tion— Gathering— Preserving. 

Chapter XI. — Miscellaneous Objects 
of Cultivation, aside from' the Or- 
dinary Farm Crops — Broom-corn — 
Flax— Cotton — Hemp — Sugar Cane 
Sorghum — Maple Sugar —Tobacco — 
Indigo — Madder— Wood — Sumach- 
Teasel — Mustard — Hops — Castor 
Bean. 

Chapter XII.— Aids and Objects of 
Agriculture — Rotation of Crops, 
and their Eflfects— Weeds— Restora- 



tion of Worn-out Soils— Fertilizing 
Barren Lands— Utility of Birds- 
Fences — Hedges — Farm Roads — 
Shade Trees— Wood Lands— Time 
of Cutting Timber— Tools— Agri- 
cultural Education of the Farmer. 

Chapter XIII. —Farm Buildings- 
House — Barn — Sheds — Cisterns — 
Various other Outbuildings— Steam- 
ing Apparatus. 

Chapter XIV.— Domestic Animals 
— ^Breeding— Anatomy— Respiration 
— Consumption of Food. 

Chapter XV.— Neat or Homed Cattle 
Devons — Herefords — Ayreshires — 
Galloways — Short -horns — Alder- 
neys or Jerseys — Dutch or Holstein 
— Management from Birth to Milk- 
ing, Labor, or Slaughter. 

Chapter XVI.— The Dairy— Milk— 
Butter— Cheese— Different Kinds- 
Manner of Working. 

Chapter XVII. — Sheep — Merino — 
Saxon— South Down — The Long- 
wooled Breeds— Cotswold—Lincom 
— Breeding — Management — Shep- 
herd Dogs. 

Chapter XVIII. — The Horse— De- 
scription of Different Breeds— Their 
Various Uses— Breeding— Manage- 
ment. 

Chapter XIX. —The Ass— Mule — 
Comparative Labor of Working 
Animals. 

Chapter XX. — Swine — Different 
Breeds — Breeding— Rearing — Fat- 
tening—Curing Pork and Hams. 

Chapter XXI. — Poultry— Hens, or 
Barn-door Fowls — Turkey — Pea- 
cock-Guinea Hen — Goose — Duck 
— Honey Bees. 

Chapter XXII. — Diseases of Ani- 
mals—What Authority Shall We 
Adopt? — Sheep — Swine — Treat- 
ment and Breeding of Horses. 

Chapter XXIII.—Conclueion— Gene- 
ral Remarks — The Farmer who 
Lives by his Occupation— Tha Ama- 
teur Farmer— Sundry Useful Tables. 



SENT POST-PAID, PKICE $2.50. 

ORANGE JUDD COMPANY, 

731 Broadway, New- York. 




The American Agriculturist 



FOR THE 



Farm, Garden, and Household. 

Established in 1842, 

The Best aiii dieajest Asriciiltnral Jcnrial In tlie World. 

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in advance ; 3 copies for Q4 ; 4 copies for C5 ; 5 copies for f G ; 6 copies for $7 ; 
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AMEHIKAiriSCHER AGHICULTURIST. 

The only purely Agricultural German paper in the United States, and the 
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together with special departments for German cultivators, prepared by writers 
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